Stellaris is a 4X game started in 2016, and its DLCs are still being released as of 2025. I would argue the game itself is alive and has been successful thus far. But as the title suggests it, the game has gone through several major overhauls during its lifetime and we are going through its third overhaul, version 4.0. Paradox is pushing daily patches to sort things out. As I am writing this, latest version is 4.0.10 as of May 16, and the 4.0 patch was released on 5th with the new expansion.
From Op-ed
Cloud Gaming and Remote Gaming
Before I start going through the op-ed, I do need to state there could be some confusions no thanks to mixed use of marketing terminologies. There are two competing, albeit not in the same league to begin with, standards of “remote gaming”, one is from the cloud and the other is from your own device, such as a gaming PC or a stationary console. GeForce NOW is in former category and supports different platforms of clients, meaning the actual computation is done on the cloud; whereas the remote gaming is based on your hardwares, and service providers are simply connecting…
One Display to Rule Them May Be Internal OLED
I thought we were past the era of VHS v.s. Betamax, or Blu-ray v.s. HD-DVD. Turns out, we are having a war of attrition due to neither party has technological nor market supremacy than the other. I’m talking about LCD and OLED, of course. If you were thinking for a moment, ‘hang on, shouldn’t it be the time OLED takes the throne?’, I will explain what led me to write this piece.
Bethesda Region Locks Elder Scrolls IV Remastered in South Korea
Bethesda has successfully launched its remastered classic, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered, on 22nd, and with it, South Korean gamers have found out Bethesda has region locked the country out. The only other country that is locked out is currently Russia, possibly due to international sanctions. On Steam, it gets more mysterious as Bethesda has specifically singled out South Korea where the game cannot be activated in, higher level restriction than Russia.
Monitors, OLED, and Future of LCD
Have you checked the price on the computer monitors recently? Mine is slowly burning away from each corner, so I decided good $300 budget would do – how naive summer child I was. The OLED monitors for 27-32 inches are roughly $1k, I get half (technically a quarter) of screen real estate. And while there are competing technologies, namely IPS Black or mini-LED, both of which are still variants of LCDs.
Ethernet, the Physical Champion of Nonphysical Mediums
More than a decade ago, I ran the ethernet ‘backbones’ for my home network: ones to connect the nodes, ones to connect workstations, and ones to connect media streaming devices. If I recall correctly, the fastest WiFi standard available at the time to be used to connect nodes-to-nodes, were either slightly slower or faster than the 1Gbps Cat 5E, which was already wired-in. I benignly thought cables would last long enough with little latencies; how incredibly wrong I was.
Tariffs, Apple Silicon, and The Last Intel Mac
Few weeks ago, I hinted a notion that I was waiting for a possible MacBook Pro update, more powerful chips and OLED displays preferably, and until then my Intel Mac Pro will have to do. Now that America has started worldwide trade war against every nations and unoccupied islands, it peaked my interest how others are adapting to the possible price hike.
On Scanning Old Photos — In Metadata We Believe
I’m still in the process of getting my photos scanned from a lab. It’s a long story; but to put it simply, it appears the lab was geared toward analog hobbyists, not mass album scanning. It would take few more weeks to get it all scanned. As for the restorative works, I don’t plan to do them right away. Few forums and reviews I’ve read on restorations called it more an artwork — each restorer would have his/her technique with different style. But filling in metadata sounded doable. Until I realized how reliant we became on even on the simplest…
Call to Router Manufacturers for Better EOL Disclosure
WiFi is the basic necessity of 21st century. We fight over it, much like cowboys have fought over lands to grow their, well, cows. Wild West is an unusual metaphor for WiFi, but my reasoning is that home networking markets lack transparency and control on how much these home-grown radio wave generators are sold and maintained much in a sense how Wild West was. We are living in a world where having access to the internet is prerequisite for living in a modern society, yet the equipments themselves are often overlooked.
Where are Touch ID Peripherals?
Apple started adopting biometrics in its devices beginning with iPhones, back in 2015. MacBooks released in 2016 were the first Macs that had embedded Touch ID Keyboards, and later an updated wireless keyboard with Touch ID was released in 2021. It’s been 4 years since the first Touch ID keyboard came out; and I’m yet to hear any other manufacturers jumping in on the chance to make the first non-Apple keyboard, let alone any rumors of development to make it happen.
OLED Screens, Mac Studio, and MacBook Pro
My last TV, the one I had replaced just few months ago, lasted well over a decade. It was a 3DTV, (the one with the 3D glasses) but as far as the screen goes as a generic television, its panel wasn’t damaged even as I was planning to have it upgraded. It didn’t support HDR or 4K, and any smart features it came equipped with fell out of software maintenance, but it was ‘functional’. I will leave it at that. No doubt I can dig up some expert opinions on the longevity of consumer grade TV panels, but that’s not…
How I Tried Leaving 1Password in 2025
I’ve been using password managers for a while, and I believe I started using 1Password beginning with either version 3 or 4. Inevitably when I say I am using 1Password, I’m not just talking about simply using an app; I’m talking about the entire password manager platform. 1Password has gone through series of audits, bug bounties, and survived rounds of security breaches other password managers had to suffer through. I believe, at the very least, we can confirm a good password manager is more than an encrypted spreadsheet full of login infos.
First Party Apple Apps are “Sherlocking” Subscriptions
Back in late 2000s, back when I was considering to move to OS X as my primary system, one of the big appeal —albeit it’s not always up to the level— was that Macintosh was bundled with first party softwares that are often exorbitantly expensive on the other side. And let me tell you, the time and time again, Time Machine alone saved my skin several times; and I had the liberty to tell other people to do the same with their Macs and PCs, always have a backup.
It’s Now on CDN
Putting Mad Tea Party on CDN or any other cache servers have been on the back burner for the longest time. And for the first time since its inception, and frankly thanks to free tier services available, Mad Tea Party is now using CDN. It won’t drastically change the experience for the readers; perhaps some European traffic may be able to see the benefit. Other than that, I just wanted to see how free tier CDN operates.
No More Multi Column Layouts
When I started preparing Mad Tea Party back in early 2010, I recall I had a decision to make. The era of widescreen, 16:9 resolution, was here to stay. But most journals, magazines, and even newspapers didn’t print in widescreen. When they had the precious space, they either reserved the saving for the new advertisement, or they ran multi-column articles to save even more space so that the one story would fit nicely on one sheet of paper.