#SamLilly

[samuelryanlilly]

In Memoriam of Social Media

Social media is dead. At least in the way we used to know it. Social media used to be an exciting idea. Using the internet to easily and conveniently connect with other people around the world. Keeping in touch with family. Sharing with friends. Meeting entirely new people. A brand new way to connect online beyond the forums and instant messaging chatrooms of old. And we quickly saw a social media boom of platforms throwing their hat in the ring with their own spin on the concept. MySpace. Facebook. Instagram. Twitter. YouTube. Twitch. Reddit. Vine. And many more! Of course, we're on Tumblr right now, aren't we? And each one had a bit of its own identity. Photos. Videos. Streaming. Blogging. Chatting. You picked your platform based on what you wanted to do and/or see. If only we knew how good we had it.

Soon these platforms began to become so successful that making an appealing space for its users fell into a lower priority. The new bottom line? Profit. Your average user isn't exactly looking for ads, subscriptions, premium features locked behind paywalls, and overall site construction that is built to promote the largest money-makers over functionality and the content we signed up to see. Sadly, it has only gotten worse with the way users have adopted the new business-like view of running their pages as well.

These days you'll be fighting ever-changing algorithms simple to be seen by other human beings just looking to connect. When you DO get seen or see something you like, it's most likely that you'll be engaging with influencers that are more concerned about their analytics than a real conversation. I understand you can't respond to 100 comments in full conversations daily, but when it's so hard to find another genuine person on such large platforms... it's a problem. It has become parasocial media at best and anti-social media at worst.

To make matters even more grim, it seems like there's not much in the realm of alternatives. As the big names lose their identity by combining text, photos, videos, messaging, and streaming all into every single platform, the more specialized competition is too small to pick up the slack yet. You can't go to an alternative and expect anywhere near the level of users to interact with. There's just no room for them. The most positive I can be about this situation is to say... pick your poison.

If you're trying to grow, make money, get famous, promote... then you're pretty stuck with the biggest platforms, for better and for worse. In sickness and in wealth. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. BUT there IS another way.

Find those smaller, niche platforms that suit you and your interests. Give them a chance. Find your flavor of social media that's more than just a reskin of the old giants. Sure, you'll see a lot of the same faces around a lot. The numbers will probably never be amazing at least for years to come. I don't think we'll have a golden age of social media again at this point. But you CAN have a great time just going back to talking with real people. No ads or algorithms or influencer bullshit. Just genuine connections with people online. For a lot of people, including myself, that's all we really want. Those places exist. It's possible. You just have to look a little to find them.

Feel free to comment or message me if you have lesser-known platform suggestions for people to check out. Personally I've been using FUZE a lot for gaming content. Or if you just want to talk on here, that's cool too.

F

[thefilipe]

Developing and innovating new jewelry making techniques with Sam Lilly. Get ready for the next big name in the jewelry world. #silver #samlilly

[samuelryanlilly]

The ìpega Controller for N-Switch

Have you ever wanted your Switch to be more like a Wii U gamepad? Probably not, but the idea of having a similar FEEL might be appealing. After my initial, new, used-for-less-than-a-month joycons developed drift after hardly even touching them, I was definitely on the lookout for an alternate solution. I got an official Nintendo Switch Pro Controller already, but what if I wanted more controllers? Well, I tried out the Hori D-Pad Left Joycon but the stick did not seem significantly different... which is good for matching them with standard joycons but bad for my peace of mind. I got a FaceOff wired pro controller by PDP (I may go into more depth on that in another post if you'd like) that functioned surprisingly well for a cheap, simple, slightly gimmicky controller. And then there was this.

Behold! A peculiar piece of plastic with their own control sticks! There's also a d-pad, no batteries required, no crazy settings needed, just plug it in and go, baby! It was relatively inexpensive (if not a tad more than I normally would risk) and though I had never heard of the brand ìpega before, I couldn't resist the temptation to try it and a least, if nothing else, have something to say about this strange product.

Of course, the pictures and wording definitely made me even more curious as they tickled me. The blurred imaged of Fortnite and Splatoon 2 along with calling it a controller for N-Switch definitely made me feel like they didn't want to get into legal trouble while advertising this.

Now this controller does have some nice features to it, don't get me wrong. The Switch fits into it nicely with rubber on the insides to grip it so firmly that you can shake it (lightly to moderately) when it's upside down and it won't fall out! I'm impressed. The design also uses that bottom bar and supporting back extensions of the plastic to help support the system weight more evenly without putting stresses on the side connections. The sticks feel nice with concave tops to keep your thumbs from slipping out. You get a D-pad. The handles are shaped to give you something substantial to grip onto unlike the flat joycons. And it uses no batteries of its own. It just runs on the system's battery at a very small drain since it has no fancy features to power.

Then again, not having fancy features isn't exactly the highest praise. To get this working you need to turn on wired pro controller communication. You have to hit buttons on the console to wake and unlock it before connecting it to the controller or else it won't do anything. There's no gyro, rumble, NFC reading... nothing. To make matters worse, it doesn't have the best feel. The curved mold of the plastic makes the D-pad directions and buttons closer to the inside shallower than those closer to the outside. The +, -, home, and screenshot buttons are far at the bottom and tiny. The sticks are a bit tall to be this high up on the controller. And of course, as is pictured above (very blurrily... sorry) they didn't even get the right labels on the triggers! Was it to avoid legal action? Did they jut have these parts laying around from cheap Sony controller projects? Or did the actually not know Nintendo uses ZL and ZR? Whatever the case, if you don't push those triggers inward squarely then they while stick and often not even register.

Ultimately, this controller replacement falls on its face for a few key reasons. It's not its lack of fancy features or crappy button feel. It's more than that. One major reason is because, well, let's face it, this DOES make it feel like you're playing a Wii U in off-TV play mode. But unlike the Wii U gamepad, there's no way to charge this while playing. There's no passthrough on the bottom so you have to take it out and stop using it if the battery is low. The second major flaw is that it's not at all potable despite only being usable in handheld mode. It's bulky, unprotected, and doesn't fold up in any way to save space in a bag, much less an optimistic pocket. And lastly, ironically, the left stick on this broke on me. For some reason it will now only move diagonally up and to the left or diagonally down and to the right. I guess I could just play D-pad only games but I might as well use something more convenient or with a better D-pad for that. In the end, this cheap piece of crap turned out to be... as expected... a cheap piece of crap.

[samuelryanlilly]

Steam Deck First Impressions

For anyone unaware, the Steam Deck is a handheld gaming computer developed by Valve with the main purpose of getting their Steam library onto a portable platform. After the their commercial flop of the home console the Steam Machine, they basically shifted towards a number of solutions to make sure their next attempt to bring Steam games to more people would go a little smoother. Enter the Steam Deck, a device that's best described as a chunkier yet beefier Nintendo Switch that is specifically tailored to run Steam games quickly and conveniently. I've been using it for roughly a week and half now and wanted to share some of my first impressions.

The physical design is pretty good. While it's a bit big to be going in any pockets and a bit heavy too, it's ergonomically very fitting to the hands. There's enough to hold onto so that makes it feel a bit lighter and to be fair, it's not as big as the promotional materials lead me to believe. For size comparison, it's about as long as the Switch with the Hori Split Pad Pro joycons on, though still thicker. Or relatively similar in size and feel to the Wii U Gamepad, though notably heavier than that. I got the 512GB model but it does have a microSD card slot for external storage expansion. There's also a headphone jack and a USB-C port for charging and peripherals. I tested these out some with headphones and a headset in the jack. I used the USB port to connect a mouse, a keyboard, a controller, and a USB hub to do all three at once no problem. I even connected a USB-C to HDMI cable to use it on my TV in the meantime waiting for the official dock to come out (which has at the time of writing this). I didn't test anything with the bluetooth connection but most of the USB stuff I connected with a USB-A to USB-C adapter with no issues.

After a quick setup I was logged in and ready to start using the Deck. The SteamOS interface here is pretty smooth aside from a few pages that require touch input or a mouse to navigate. You can tweak some settings but the biggest ones are brightness and frames per second because these will make a noticeable difference in battery life. While it's only a 1280x720 16:10 LCD display, being able to play in 60fps with this much powerful hardware is definitely a jump up from a Switch in handheld mode. One of my absolute favorite things they've implemented on the Deck is the compatibility system. Fixed specs means they can test if games are compatible or not pretty easily. Anything with a green check mark is considered great on Deck with full compatibility. A yellow “i” means it'll work but some features may not be ideal for the Deck such as interface, text, and so on. There are unsupported titles which may work just fine but are considered too much of a hassle to get working, among others I'm sure just won't work. I haven't found any yet that failed to launch or run but I did have one poorly optimized indie game become more trouble than it was worth to fix. And then there are the question mark ones that aren't tested enough to categorize. The reason I love this compatibility system is because I can just open up the store or the library, filter for everything with a green check mark, download, and I'm playing. No need to hunt through specs and hope it'll magically work with my configuration.

It's also even easier to play because most games will pick a default template for the Steam Deck controls, but you can also change templates to other presets or custom community ones. Plus the trackpads, touch screen, and extra back buttons give you lots of extra inputs and ways to control games otherwise not well suited to controller inputs. The innards of this machine are pretty respectable as well. Sure, it's no match for a full gaming rig, but for a portable system it does an admirable job delivering great performance and visuals. It feels so nice to just turn on a game, have it work, and be able to play with controller-type controls. I mostly have been watching YouTube stuff on the side while playing and it's great. No need to setup at my computer and plug in all my stuff. I can just pick this up, turn it on, and go. You do need internet for the cloud sync or downloading games, though. Cloud sync actually lets you switch between that and your PC pretty seamlessly. You can also use the auto-suspend of putting the Deck to sleep to resume games later without closing or leaving the system on. So easy and convenient and capable.

Is the Steam Deck a Nintendo Switch killer? Probably not. The libraries don't really overlap a ton so if anything it's like a Switch companion because if you already like playing games that way then you'll probably be more enticed to get through your Steam backlog on the Deck. It could replace it if you used a Switch emulator but that's not likely very legal. And to be fair, while I know you can do tons more with the Steam Deck in terms of emulators and dual booting operating systems and all that, I really just got it to play Steam games. That's what it was made for. And in that regard I think it excels incredibly well. It's a much cheaper alternative to gaming laptop for the ease of portable PC gaming. It's easier to pick up and play at a moments notice to relax than on a PC too. It can play a lot more games with more options and content than modern consoles and handhelds as well. And for anyone on the fence about which way to lean between console and PC, this comes in not only as a good midpoint experience, but also a midpoint price. It's just so impressive and it really does exactly what I've wanted for my Steam games for the longest time. It gives me the ability to spend less time troubleshooting and more time actually playing. If you think you'll like the Steam Deck already, you probably will. Go for it. It's worth it. But we'll see how it holds up past these first impressions as time goes on. I'll keep ya posted. Until then, thanks for listening to me ramble. It's just really nice to still find reasons to be excited about gaming.

VIDEO: https://youtu.be/uDrC7yvKnyg