When you hear the term "troll," you may conjure up images of mischievous creatures lurking under bridges or causing havoc online. But have you ever heard of an iron troll? These enigmatic beings bring a whole new level of intrigue to the world of folklore and mythology.
Iron trolls, also known as ferrous fiends, are mythical creatures that have captivated the imaginations of storytellers and explorers for centuries. Unlike their more commonly-known counterparts, iron trolls are believed to be made entirely of iron, possessing an otherworldly and formidable presence.
Legends vary about the origins of these creatures, with some claiming they are born from the powerful fusion of lightning striking a forge, while others suggest they are the result of ancient alchemical experiments gone awry. Regardless of their creation, iron trolls are said to possess immense strength and power, often depicted as towering figures with gleaming metal bodies.
One of the most intriguing aspects of iron trolls is their mysterious and elusive nature. They are known for dwelling in deep caverns, hidden grottoes, and forgotten ruins, rarely emerging into the mortal realm. It is said that they guard valuable treasures and ancient artifacts, making them objects of fascination and desire for adventurers and treasure hunters.
But be warned, encountering an iron troll is not for the faint of heart. These creatures are known for their fiercely protective nature, defending their domains with ruthless determination. Legends speak of their ability to manipulate metal and hurl projectiles with incredible force, posing a significant threat to anyone who ventures too close.
While the existence of iron trolls remains a matter of debate, their presence sparks both fear and wonder in the hearts of those who dare to explore the realms of fantasy and imagination. They have become beloved figures in literature, art, and video games, captivating audiences with their imposing figures and mythical abilities.
So next time you hear about trolls, remember that there is more to these creatures than just mischief and chaos. Dive into the captivating world of iron trolls and discover a realm where metal meets myth, where strength and mystery intertwine, and where legends are forged in iron.
I do have some thoughts on the death of Google Stadia, as a soon to be former player of this niche platform. So I guess I'll go ahead and write everything out while I'm thinking about it.
The Stadia Community
I've
met a lot of different people while playing various games on Stadia. So
I guess that makes me part of the Stadia community. Early on, I told a
couple of my friends about the free controlled and Stadia Pro deal and
got them on board with Stadia as well, so there were a couple of people
that I knew that I was playing with on occasion as well.
Everyone
I know in the community that hasn't ghosted off the platform by now is
all up in their feelings and pissed off about Stadia getting the ax (if you're reading this and part of the Stadia diaspora, you're welcome to join my discord channel cuz GAMES https://discord.gg/EHCBeswRyB)
Don't Blame Bad Marketing
Google is of course famous for killing products that work perfectly well for the people that actually use them. I was a huge fan of the RSS based Google Reader for many years, up until they pulled the rug out from under it. I had a lot of blogs I read through Google reader, and really those blogs were a big inspiration behind why I started my own blog in the first place.
I read a lot of
technology news I remember reading about Stadia while it was still in
its ground up development stages at Google - before Stadia even had the
name Stadia. I remember reading about how they were planning to solved
latency issues with AI using predictive inputs, etc, as they were sort
of putting the touches into building the project. I remember when Google
announced the name and thinking "well that sounds kinda silly." I
remember the controllers initially being up for sale. Then I remember
there being tons of complaints from the early adopters once it was
actually released. But none of those memories is here nor there. I just
wanted to point out that Stadia has been on my radar since Google first
even started talking about it publicly.
Sometime
around the beginning of the pandemic, in 2020, Google was basically
giving the controllers away along with a free 3 month subscription to
Stadia Pro. That's when I got on board with Stadia.
I'll give three reasons for why I tried Stadia in the first place;
I like new technology.
I like free stuff.
I like getting stuff in the mail.
Stadia ticked all three boxes and boy was I happy when that sexy white controlled showed up in the mail.
Google forcing a gamer to try Stadia
Google was at different points literally giving away free controllers, chromecast ultras, and Stadio Pro subscriptions. Google was advertising that they were giving them away in the Google Play store, on 200 million android cell phones, and barely anyone signed up, even then. What was Google supposed to do? blackmail people? I do not really think there was much else Google could have done for Stadia.
No Mass Appeal
Stadia fanboys talk about the advantages of not
needing hardware, portability, etc, but lets face it; all that geeky techno talk means absolutely zip and
zero to the masses, which is what Google needed to appeal to, to be
successful.
Even though Sony was already a household name, Sony Playstation took many many years to find its foothold, they just kept plugging away, and
it wasn't even until the Playstation 2 that Sony stopped being niche and ended up being a household
name associated with gaming consoles (look at historic sales numbers).
Very few people even tried Stadia. I know this, because I was there, I was playing it. More or less alone.
Unpopular Opinion: Google didn't Kill Stadia, Stadia Was Already Dead
stadia cross-playsble games
I once read an article about how being a Stadia player was a really, really, lonely experience. And I think to an extent, that was mostly true. The only one game in the Stadia library I can think of that always had a lot of other players was Player Unknown Battlegrounds. Player Unknown was probably the only developer I can think of whose game's cross-platform functionality actually worked. Here's a list of games that Stadia players could allegedly "cross play" their game with players on other platforms with, but to be honest I'd take that list with a HUGE grain of salt on whether or not that functionality ever actually even worked properly for the game listed.
Actually, Crayta, I believe, was also cross platform but that shit was, is, and always will be a total trash game, so I'm not going to count it. How anyone could ever have fun playing that I really have no idea. I tried really hard to like it, I wanted to like it, but it just isn't fun.
The vast majority of my experiences with Stadia, before I realized it was basically a ghost town, was going into a game "cold" and sitting in online lobbies of games like Destiny 2, World War Z, Dead by Dawn, etc (many times on games that were supposedly "cross play" with vibrant player communities on other platforms. But I'd sit there, waiting for team matches that would never happen because no one else was playing anywhere in the world.
Even superbly entertaining multiplayer match games like Super Bomberman
R Online, which was being actively discussed in the big gaming mags, was dead on the inside. After
I had played Bomberman for a while I started to realize everyone else
in all the matches I was in were literally just a bunch of bots (and not very good ones,
either). At one point, I got myself up in rank to the number one player
in the game, but it wasn't really that hard because barely anyone else
was playing. Knowing I was playing against bots really took the fun factor out of it. And using any of the emoji or chat features, it was really and truly like talking to yourself, so, pointless to even have that stuff in the game. I think I might have run into another live human a grand
total of once in the many, many hours I spent playing Super Bomberman R Online.
The Stadia Pro Subscription
So here's my beef with Stadia Pro. Err, Beefs (is that even a word?). I had a few things I didn't care for about Stadia Pro. I'm placing a screenshot from the Stadia website of the "perks" of having Stadia Pro here; because I have a feeling that pretty soon all that shit will go into the dustbin of the internet. I highlighted a couple of things that I want to address here in this blog post, so allow me to digress.
Stadia Pro was a good deal, in theory. For $9.99 a month, there were new games each month in the Stadia Store that you could claim and put in your "Stadia library" to keep forever (basically you could play them anytime you had an active Stadia Pro subscription). Now that Stadia is shutting down its service, I guess that means all the games I kept an active subscription for so I could claim them and play them at my leisure are going buh bye. Lame.
I actually found a few gems that I otherwise would have never even heard of or tried playing through Stadia Pro (e.g. Orcs Must Die 3 or Journey to the Savage Planet).
So what the fuck exactly did I get for that $9.99 I was paying each month for pro? I'm still trying to figure that out. I'll probably still be trying to figure it out in 10 years.
Streaming to Youtube
In Conclusion
Stadia was, in the end, something
that never caught on. It was a product aimed at a market that didn't
have a demand for it. A good idea, just not an idea that there was a
market to support it. And I do have some thoughts on the timing of
Stadia getting cancelled.
The flimsy USB port on my Nintendo Switch fried. I weighed 3 options;
Send it out for repair
Buy a new one
Try to fix it
Since I was educated by the "fuckit, I can't break it any worse" repair school, I decided to purchase a $2 3rd party replacement part off Amazon. Its unbelievable how much people charge to fix Nintendo Switches. The USB port getting busted seems to be a pretty common problem. At some point in the past I had some luck replacing the USB port of an Amazon Kindle Fire, so I thought I probably had a pretty good shot at getting the Switch working.
After the part arrived I spent a few weeks watching how-to Youtube videos, reading over how-to websites, and generally increasing my knowledge of the innards of the Nintendo Switch. Then I spent about 2 hours very carefully taking it apart and noting the different part numbers. I soon realized the motherboard was some weird limited-run version that was only sold in... Asian markets? Wtf. I bought it new. Odd. But this articular version of Switch Motherboard is really hard to
find spare parts for, not that Switches are easy to find parts for in the first place. But this motherboard, it was literally impossible. The only sources I could find for the particular components of this version of the Mobo or even just a replacement Mobo, were some caches of long ago E-bay auctions for junk parts; and one REALLY REALLY sketchy ad on alibaba. Either way, the parts, even if they were actually for sale, were more expensive than just buying a new Switch. Armed with that knowledge, I proceeded with my plan.
Adventures in MicroSoldering
I got the Switch and all its various components taken apart. Then I fired up my trusty old soldering gun making sure to use the finest tip I had available. I have to say, getting the USB ports off without damaging these things is a BITCH. The USB ports for Nintendo Switch motherboards have a weird design and quite a few contact points where they are soldered directly into the motherboard, its extremely difficult and time consuming to remove them. Nintendo Switches are definitely not made to be repaired. But after a lot time, patience, and trial and error, I got the USB port off without damaging the motherboard.
Success
I popped the new USB port on and it fit perfectly. I carefully soldered all the connections into place. I pieced the electronic components back together, and it worked when I plugged it in to test it! The battery was charging and I got it up to 5%. I was feeling pretty happy, so I carefully put the Switch back together with all 5 million of its tiny black screws.
I Suck at Microsoldering
So right after I carefully put the Switch all back together, I plugged it in again, thinking it would charge and life would be good and I could say "hey i just fixed a fucking nintendo switch," But right when I plugged it in and turned it on, I realized I'm not really that good at micro-soldering. In
fact, I learned I'm really, really, really extremely bad at it.
AGH
I plugged in the Nintendo Switch, turned it on, and immediately something shorted and fried. I could smell that "burning electronics" smell and bunch of smoke poofed out of the USB-C port. Knowing those rechargeable batteries can straight up explode, I reflexively chucked the whole thing out the window. It spun as it sailed through the air, like some kind of smoking frisbee, and landed it my yard. It sat there for a little bit smoking, like it was some soldier in Vietnam popping smoke to bring the Hueys in.
Post-Mortem
I let the Switch sit out in my yard for a while. Overnight, actually. I had spent about 6 hours fucking with it already and when it started smoking, I was just totally over it. The next day I went out and did an autopsy. The motherboard inside was totally melted, as well as the wifi chip. And the plastic backing of the LED was pretty toasty too. The poor Nintendo Switch was DOA.
Que Sera
Really, it would have just saved a lot of time and effort to just to pick up an extra day at work and pay the couple hundo for a new Switch cuz that was a lot of my free-time ill never get back.
Conclusion
Nintendo is a racket. I'm buying a new Switch next time one of these fucks up. And the 2 year protection plan bullshit that I hate. Just in case. Fuck.
Just when you thought things couldn't get any worse, this happened at a Pinellas County, Florida, Walmart.
Asia McClendon, 29, entered the store around 6:30 p.m. on a motorized scooter.
Asia then began to tear ass through the aisles, knocking over displays and damaging merchandise. When a Walmart employee asked her to leave, she slapped the worker and told others to "fuck off."
Come and get one in the yarbles, if ya have any yarbles
There's a lot of people that, in my opinion, deserve a swift kick in the nuts. Some of them don't even have nuts, but that's okay because I'm an equal opportunity hater (EOH - now hiring).
Here's my (partial and incomplete) list in no particular order.
JD Harmeyer from the Howard Stern Show; for being a sensitive bitch and blocking me on Twitter.
The starting 5 for the New York Knicks; Fuck the Knicks.
Nurse - "It's one hour into my shift, time for me to make another tiktok of myself dancing!" Patient- "Help me, I'm dying."
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, I'm completely over some of my fellow nurses. I'm done with them. Sure, I posted the mandatory, "dressed up in the COVID protective gear" selfie on Instagram to show some solidarity, but damn. Can you guys cool it with the narcissism?
I mean, I understand that maybe some of them are being approached by journalists and maybe are being portrayed in a certain light. But some of them are also being super over-dramatic on the public face.
Did not want the attention? Yea, right.
"Everyday I leave, and my 6 year old child hugs me and says some home alive, mommy." These kind of statements certainly pull at the heart-strings. But you also have to ask yourself what the hell these people are telling these young kids. But what I see it as is a form of ME ME ME.
