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Category: English Post (Page 11 of 97)

My Gaming Renaissance

2021-04-22 / / 0 Comments

I’ve wrote many times on this blog that I’ve lost the urge to game, that gaming was becoming a forced obligation that I push myself to do in all manners of productivity tools: (Chains and to do lists). Then I thought that I found my second wind gaming. That was hardly the case. This wasn’t me trying to adapt a new past time, it’s a different thing altogether.

More than leisure

I was going through a rough patch in my life. I’ve been displaced and lost my job in the process, and on-top of that a massive quarantine has hit the world and everyone was sitting home for days on end. I’ve sat home for so long that my car battery died and couldn’t start it anymore! – Luckily we got that fixed -.

What does this have to do with gaming you might ask? A whole lot actually..

I needed something to pass the time. Keep me sharp and motivated. But since I was feeling down and didn’t feel like doing much, it had to be something easy to pickup.
What better thing than my life long friend, video games.

It was a bit odd at first. The process of re learning something that I already knew and forgot. It took a bit of getting used to, but once I settled on my bike. I was good to go! I spent a lot of time playing video games, staying inside and minding my own business. I think that is a win.

 

My gaming setup. Ain’t much but its honest work

 

Gaming helped get my mind stop overthinking about life issues. Kept me busy doing something somewhat productive. It doesn’t compare to reading 100 books a year, but it sure feels great!
I think I’ve done more gaming in two months than I’ve done the entire past decade combined!

Why was I hitting a major wall when it came to gaming?

In a previous post I’ve listed a bunch of ways to make the gaming experience more enjoyable. Most of those things I didn’t have access to at that time. So I had to make do with what I had. I’ve also received a bunch of tips off Reddit that I followed.

I’ve watched a Youtube video that got to the bottom of my issue and directed my attention to a very obvious issue that I have:

A lot of my games really suck!

Some games are truly free (free as in freedom not free beer) however, the graphics are choppy and the sound is a nightmare. It’s very rare when you find a totally free game that is very good – Wesnoth is one -.

The fact that I was trying to game on Linux didn’t help much either – I know that this is the year 2020 and that gaming on Linux took massive leaps towards the future with Steam, Vulkan, Lutris, etc – . It’s just not working for me. I love Linux and I love playing video games and it doesn’t seem like the two can exist under one simple scheme.
There are thousands of games out there, everyone is bound to find their cup of tea. I just needed to find mine.

Rediscovering my roots

I started by replaying a game from my past that I found very engaging and stimulating. NFS Most Wanted. Beating the game warmed me up nicely for a much bigger experience.

This ordeal that I was going through reminded me of something that I’ve long forgotten. That gaming was an escape for me from the stress of everyday life. That gaming was there for me when goings were tough. That I made good friends and great times through gaming.

Needless to say that this cemented gaming as a popular pastime for me. Much better than watching TV for example. I’m also thinking of upgrading my gaming setup. Any suggestions?

Do you play video games? What’s your platform of choice? What game are you currently playing? Let me know in the comments section below.

Of houses and homes

2021-03-22 / / 0 Comments
What’s home? Seems almost like a no brainer question, isn’t it not?
Over the last year or so I turned into somewhat of a nomad. I called several places home. and when you are on the move, whether you actually chose it or it was forced upon you, you really start to mull over the meaning of things you took for granted befoe.
What’s a home? What’s a house? what makes a house home but not the other way around?

An epiphany

It hit me in the hardest of ways that having the family around does make the house a home no matter how loose the term of a house is. It could be a Crap shack for all I care for, but having your family around makes it a home. Family makes a house a home but not the other way around and it will never be.

Home makers

It surprises me how can some people turn a tent into a home! You wouldn’t get this until you see it with your own eyes. The little things that make a home are quintessential and absolutely taken for granted ..You wouldn’t know it until you are stranded out on your own with no roof over your head.
Perhaps these perspectives are brought into my focus because of my own personal ordeal of being a former displaced person.

Count your blessings

Yes! Some blessings aren’t appreciated until you lose them and when you lose you’ll have all the time in the world to think about those blessings and what you had in your hand but took for granted.
It’s always good to appreciate what you have.

Carry your home around?

Can you carry your home with you? I’m not talking about the mobile homes or trailers, going all redneck at once.
It’s about the values that make a house a home. Keeping the connections no matter how far the distance go.
If you’re home is something embedded in your heart then you will carry it with you no matter where you go, whether is it next door or across the planet; You can make a house into a home.
It’s about those core values that you carry within that make you you and make home a home..

To Digress

I’ve shifted away from blogging in English after moving to this new / old domain. That’s not the case. I do feel that some topics are better suited for Arabic and others are not .
What do you think? Can any house be a home? What makes a home, a home? Comment below and see you in a next post.

Game of the week presents: Brawlhalla 3.20

2020-10-20 / / 0 Comments

This is a game that I discovered very recently (despite it being released over 6 years ago) and by pure coincidence. An action fighting game that is a twist of the “Super Smash Bros” series of games.

The goal is very simple: Knock your foes off the platform 3 times to win.

Important notice

My review is kept strictly to the offline 3.20 version. I didn’t play online against real people or entered contests. I think you need to add it to your steam library to do that, and since this is a side-loaded game. Those features are not available.

Game pros

1. Has an immediate pick up and play appeal. No complex story or learning needed. I didn’t play a whole lot of it but I immediately grasped the basics, and the rest is sure to follow!
2. A colorful roaster of characters. With a lot of customization options. Some are from fantasy tropes like Ogres, so if you played other games like Wesnoth. You’ll feel right at home with this one. With nearly 40 characters to choose from, each with their own stats and special weapons.

3. Good looking graphics and animations.
4. The game has a huge following online and recently reached 40 million active players online according to Brawlhalla’s own post on their blog.
5. Download size is small (sadly this still matters here in 2020, sigh..). 255 Mbs to be exact.
6. Free to play. That’s the coolest part.

Game cons

This version is for Windows only. It could be played on Wine for Linux systems but native game play is always better.

Top tip: Use a game pad, it is much more fun that way.

Download

The game can be downloaded from this link. It’s compressed as a .7z for optimal compression. Most archiving software should be able to extract it. But if you face any problems, download 7zip from this link.

Final words

This was the latest installment of Game of the Week. Hopefully you enjoyed this bit. Let me know what do you think in the comments section below, and I’ll catch you in the next one.

 

 

The summer of blackouts

2020-09-21 / / 0 Comments

An introduction to a chronic issue

The summer of 2020 breaks a national records of how many blackouts occurred in one year. I lost count at 7 but I am sure it’s around 10 times. All of which has been announced on the official page of the general electric company, and very well documented if I may add.

A culture of “No shame”

In normal circumstances whomever charge for the energy sector would resign in shame following such atrocities (knowing my compatriots that’s not a thing), and you’d expect that they’d be fired. No one is fired.. They are relieved of their duties and rotated to another position within the same organization.. Marvelous.

Japanese officials bowing in apology. Source: The independent.

Just wondering, if our electric company officials had to bow for every outage or blackout, how many life times would they spend bowing?

Overlapping authorities

One thing always boggled me, where do the authorities of the electric company end and the ministry of electricity and renewable energy starts? Is there a practical usage of “renewable energy” in Libya? Is the ministry really just a container for a company? Then one of them is surely redundant?!

The numbers .. They just don’t add up!

Libya is an oil producing company, a member of the OPEC, and has a very low population to space ratio and an even lower population increase percentage (1.5% in 2018); and a population of 6.75 Million people according to Wikipedia. So having a crippling energy crisis seems suspicious even to the best of intentions.

Lack of transparency

There are a lot of numbers not being presented to the masses.

How much energy is produced in Libya per day per megawatts?

How much is the deficiency in megawatts per day?

How much are the costs and revenues of the sector?

No one knows for sure, all the people know that the hours of power outages are increasing, up to several days at end. With no plausible justification for this lack of competence. The amount of money spent on the sector is in the billions of dollars. With no improvement whatsoever.

Post war blues

A war just ended and everyone is feeling the burn. A year and two months of assault won’t go in a heartbeat. The electric grid has sustained a lot of damage and it would take a lot of time and effort to repair what’s been damaged.
It’s worth noting that blocking the production of oil – the main source of income for Libya- is a major factor in this suffering indeed. (Thanks uncle Hafter, I hope you fry in hell).

An oil production facility.

Final words

It’s been almost 10 years since the uprising in 2011. The situation is at its worse (so far) and threatening to deteriorate even worse. That ironically would make us reminisce about the good old days when we had power for two hours every other day.

I’m just using the hours of not having electricity (or lately the hours of having it) as an index for happiness and misery.

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