Just yesterday I hit free twitch turbo partner on twitch after roughly 5 months of streaming (somewhat) consistently. Today I'm hoping to share some decent advice and give my own (learned) opinion on some of the frequent yet not always useful tips shared around here.
Before writing this I did a cursory search through the subreddit for frequently asked questions so hopefully this answers most of the ones that I myself have any experience to answer.
My simple request: I'm not going to be posting any links to my stream or anything but if you go out of your way to find it please don't follow/subscribe to the channel unless you are genuinely interested. Thanks big boss.

Should you stream?

If I have to read another thread or comment of a person asking if they should stream I am going to scream. What do you people expect to hear? Yes, please stream the world needs you, you will be rich beyond your wildest dreams and have all the clout to have ever been cloutted.
I know people who usually type out questions like that probably don't read posts but here is a hack I've used to answer my own dumb questions through out the years. Say that shit out loud and respond to it like someone asked you the question. Nine times out of ten, you end up answering it yourself and on the off-chance you actually don't you should have a more actionable question.
Example: Instead of asking "should I stream?" you end up realizing the only thing holding you back is having no mic or something. The question then becomes "I want to stream what's a good cheap mic?". Which is a lot better and doesn't make people want to pelt you with rocks.
For those of you who ask "should I stream or is it a waste of time?" please, I BEG YOU, stop. Most of the shit you do is a waste of time, you either want to stream or don't. Make a decision based on that.

Webcam, do you need one?

This question is asked so often that I see it every time I come on the subreddit. Unsurprisingly, the answer is always the same as well, yes you do.
However I disagree.
I have never streamed with a webcam, not a single time, yet I'm still here and somehow managed to get partnered.
Now, I know why every one parrots the same advice, it is because the people making tip threads, youtube videos, etc., all say to use a webcam. Harris Heller said it once and I'm pretty sure that was enough for the people who copy and paste what he says in text threads here to become their mantra.
The truth is, all that matters is the content. Ask yourself do you do/want to do a lot of react/just chatting content? If so, you probably want a webcam since your content will focus around reacting to content. Lirik doesn't use face-cam because his content is his gameplay and commentary, not his face. Corpse literally blew up and is famous for not showing his face (even though he is still a personality).
I know the whole "Lirik doesn't use a face cam" argument is going to be met with people saying "exception not the rule!!!" but seriously, just use your head. Half the people you watch probably don't need face cams. MoonMoon probably doesn't need a face cam, Critikal didn't have a face cam until he already had over a million subs on youtube, schlatt didn't either, Dream doesn't, AdmiralBahroo doesn't, almost every DBD streamer I watch doesn't, just think for yourself.
The point I'm trying to drive home here is not just that a webcam isn't required, but also you need to look at what you want to create and decide for yourself.
Edit: I saw someone say somewhere that you need a webcam for sponsors. That's cap. I've had a sponsor and nobody has seen this ugly mug.

Equipment in general

People like saying that they need this this and that before they start streaming. This is just stalling. Until last month I hadn't owned a desktop PC my whole life. Before that it was just laptops and using my phone to read chat or look up things. You obviously need SOME equipment to start, i.e. a computer and some form of internet connection, but that doesn't mean you need to pick up a shure, a streamdeck, 4 monitors, 6 consoles, and whatnot.
Here is my setup. Keep in mind I literally just upgraded this last month after saving up for several months:

• Blue Yeti: Hell ya baby got a free game with it too so I'm for sure pleased with this purchase. Edit: I recommend shopping around for mics since the yeti isn't as much of a "get this for streaming" mic as it once was. Plenty of good options out there for cheaper
• Two BenQ monitors: Like I said, I was using my phone for chat but that got old fast. These monitors are cheap and 144hz. There are some color issues but eff it I barely notice anymore
• Streamer PC from NZXT: My old laptop was from 2016 and made editing literal hell. Averaged 3 crashes every time I would try and render (and the renders took about an hour). Upgrading to this was the most worth purchase I've ever made. Also, the streamer PC got upgraded since I purchased, so you can grab a 2070 instead of the 2060 ti like I have :)
• Red Dragon Keyboard and Mouse: I'm a cheap ass so when I see light up peripherals for like 40 bucks total I am sold.
• Earbuds: Legit don't know the brand. I stole them from my sister like a year ago. I prefer these over a headset anyway since I don't want that gamer dent lmao

For those of you who are probably saying "GROSS A PRE-BUILT" remember that part prices are actual aids right now, not to mention the availability of even finding good parts. If you have the cash go pre-built that shit is amazing.
My recommendation:
Stay with your shitty set-up as long as possible but make sure to pick up a good mic first. Big streamers (looking at you Ludwig) shit on the Yeti, but straight facts all you need is to EQ that shit a lil bit and nobody will bat an eye. You don't have to pick up the Yeti (there are lots of cheaper options) but that's just the one I and many others have gotten since it is reliably a good ass mic.
Audio <- chat engagement <- pc upgrade

YouTube

How many people have to tell you bums to focus on YouTube before you do it? Twitch sucks ass. I'll say it, i'm brave. No discoverability, especially to those of you at the very bottom. Make a goddamn YouTube and start pumping out videos, it is not hard.
Ludwig made a power point on how to be a streamer that talks about a few things but the most important point of all was what he said on creating content for stream/YouTube. This isn't the exact timestamp but it do be close: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/896089267?t=01h24m14s
That advice is coming from a top streamer who also has over a million subs on YouTube by almost exclusively taking twitch vods and editing them for YouTube.
As for getting views on your videos here is my advice from my personal experiences:

• Thumbnail and title are important but there are outliers that can thrive without doing shit. One guy I saw has their most watched video (over 250k views) with a title like "[game] [character] gameplay" and the literal default thumbnail that youtube makes. AND to top that off it was just a VOD from their twitch channel.
• Audience retention matters. There is a reason massive YouTubers have these weird zoom in pans and flamboyant gestures all the time. Lots of movement and noises keep our tiny attention spans happy and frequently cutting is usually the key to success, although don't overuse it. I do very light edits and have been growing but that's more of my personal preference rather than a growth strategy.
• Respond and engage. If you have one comment on your video and they are complimenting you, why aren't you responding? This is by far the easiest way to get someone to continue to engage with you and trust me, that is the most important thing in the algorithms eyes.

My understanding of YouTube

So obviously, clickthrough rate and audience retention are the things that are constantly brought up when talking about gaining more views and what not, but I am fairly comfortable in saying that there are other metrics that you should be paying attention to.
Let me hit you with a something that would make Dream shake in his boots. I don't subscribe to anyone on YouTube. *gasp*
The reason for that being, I almost always have the videos I want to see on my home page. I never have to go, "wonder if x YouTuber made a video" since YouTube knows I watch and enjoy their stuff. The question for most people being, how does YouTube know what people like and how does it suggest it to them? Basically, by seeing how often people engage with your content AND also what type of content you create. (although keep in mind, youtube tries to throw new videos at you a lot as well, these are usually in-line with content you engage with though)
For engagement, think of it as like affinity points in a video game but in reverse. Before you get to bang that smoking hot sim, you got to woo them. Every time someone likes your video they get a point, every time they comment they get two, every subscription counts as like 10, watching an entire video might be 20, etc. Obviously, these are made up values but I hope you follow what I'm putting down here. Once they get enough points you start showing up more in their home page.
I know this because I have a different account on my phone that doesn't have the same suggestions as my main account because I watch different things on my PC than my phone. However, I do like to look at the comments while I'm taking a dump or something. Problem was, my videos were rarely every recommended. I solved this easily by liking a couple videos. I didn't even watch them, just liked and read comments. LITERALLY NOT EVEN SUBSCRIBED AND I GET NOTIFICATIONS ON MY PHONE SOMETIMES WHEN A VIDEO DOES WELL!
In other words, by getting people to like and comment on your videos you are almost guaranteeing they see future videos from you.
Now, keep in mind, engagement is only a small portion of the whole pie. And even though you might engage with a content creator often, there is still a chance you miss some of their videos because of one other reason, the content's genre.

Content Genre

You might have noticed this phenomenon on various different creators YouTubes, but sometimes they create a video that bombs. Usually, this happens when they create something outside of their niche. This could be as simple as changing games, or as radical as changing the entire direction of the channel. Even if you engage like crazy with a creator, if they change the content enough, you won't get that shit recommended to you.
This is the main reason some creators have several channels and why some even get pigeonholed to one type of content. The reality of it is, if you build your audience on one piece of content and then want to change it, you will be fighting an uphill battle. One of the best ways to fight that is to diversify early OR better yet, emphasize your personality over the content. Jschlatt shits views and he does whatever the hell he wants really. Same goes for jacksepticeye, markiplier, Ludwig, Critikal, XQC, and numerous other creators.
That being said, doing one game/genre isn't a bad strategy either. A metric fuck ton of OfflineTv's videos are the same game. DisguisedToast played Hearthstone on repeat, then switched to TFT, THEN switched to among us, and his videos absolutely kill. Valkyrae is one of the biggest streamers period and all she does is play/upload among us and rust. Then of course we have all the minecraft streamers too.
It's really up to you to decide, but I'd recommend going towards personality content since that allows the most flexibility.

Other Social Media (Twitter, IG, etc)

Lots of people here seem to think that they don't have time to do YouTube or some other BS they think up as an excuse, so they think that twitter, instagram, tiktok, etc are all ways to grow. Trust me, they are not good ways to grow.
These are all stupid treadmills that trick you into thinking you're doing something when in reality you aren't moving the needle by much if by any at all. Posting ten dumb tweets and reposting memes on IG seem "productive" if you frame it in the light of "content creation" but the two people that see all of these things don't really give a shit. Spend that time working on a video for YouTube.
Don't give me this "I don't have time" bullshit. Do small videos and work yourself up, become better and faster. Perfectionism is a cute word for procrastination.
Ok, now that I took a shit on them so hopefully, you won't grind on them all day, these are still ways to grow and are important. Having multiple platforms for fans to communicate and engage with you is always a good idea, but don't spread yourself so thin early on when nobody knows who you are. Prioritize the thing that will get eighty percent of your results.
I personally have a discord for people to come and chat in. Thing is, I had no intention of doing so because I don't really use discord that much. The only reason it exists is that people kept asking for it in the comments on my YouTube videos so I made one.
TL;DR: Don't put the cart before the horse :)
Edit: Oh ya I forgot to mention. TikTok is trash for growth. I won't mention names cuz that's probably toxic(?) but there is someone signed on luminosity who has 690k TikTok followers and 95k YouTube subscribers who barely cracks 100 views on Twitch and has a hard time getting over 1k on YouTube. So don't go thinking TikTok leads to immense fame ya darn kids

Hosting/Raiding

Getting hosted/raided means actual jack. I remember pretty clearly when I had like ten viewers, I got hosted by someone with twenty-five or something. I think only one person ended up saying anything in the chat to me about it and although some stayed for the entire stream, by the time I went live again I lost all of the people who were in the host. This seems to be something others have mentioned as well, you won't retain almost any views from hosts/raids.
Edit: Please do try raiding/hosting or otherwise networking with other streamers at least once. Your mileage may vary and it could end up blowing up your channel. Who knows?
Edit edit: Having something that you can do during the stream is huge when getting hosted/raided. Most of the time, if not all of the time, a streamer is ENDING their stream and sending viewers to you rather than timing it for your own content. So if you are doing something uninteresting or are in the middle of something you are going to get less retention than if you did something crazy to impress the newcomers. In other words, having a strategy for hosting/raiding growth is key.

Speaking on stream

This seems to be something a lot of people struggle with on Twitch since so many people ask how to do it when nobody is watching/chatting. Coming from someone who had this problem, the answer is pretty simple, talk for the content not the chat.
What I mean by this is you should be focusing on your content more than the chat. Since I play games, what I do is just say some shit about whats happening on screen and sometimes say something that is hopefully funny. Pick up a garbage item? Say something about how garbage the item is, ez.
If you're streaming to NO VIEWERS you shouldn't be streaming to stream anyway. What you should be doing is making a YouTube video in the hopes of getting viewers to watch your stream. The only way to do that is to have good content planned out that should effectively act as your script. Again, Ludwigs stream on this is good (it'll probably be a video soon) so make sure to check it out.
A more recent problem I've had was just how much I engaged with chat (suffering from success I know). When I went to edit the videos I had to cut large swathes of the video because I was just chatting to people. Make sure to avoid this when you are actually trying to get content out for YouTube as it can mess up the flow of a video and make it harder to edit. You still can chat with people just make sure not to go overboard. Again, Ludwig is a perfect example of this, just look at his videos and streams and notice the difference between the two.

Streaming as a job/hobby

I hate this dumb argument of streaming isn't your hobby or twitch isn't your job. You have 24 hours in the day, subtract 8 for sleeping and depending on your job, 9 for work. All that extra time can be spent doing whatever the fuck you want. Want to get big and make money streaming? Do work. Want to just stream while you're playing games anyway? Do that.
IF YOU WANT TO BECOME A PROFESSIONAL AT SOMETHING YOU PUT IN THE AMOUNT OF EFFORT REQUIRED TO DO SO! So stop telling people it has to be a hobby or it has to be a job. It can be either for christ's sake.

Partner difference

I have a checkmark which makes me a better person.
No, but seriously, partner doesn't really do much other than add more emote slots and some quality options. Also, you don't gain extra cash as a partner either. I don't have the mystical bounty board or god-tier split, just the checkmark to flex baby.

Opinion on affiliate

Devin Nash made a video about how affiliate is a scam, which is kinda true but only for people with no viewers. Having the sub button is huge and even when I was small small, affiliate gave me a couple hundred bucks a month for no effort on my part. Patreon is probably better though, no lie.

Twitch "grind"

If you stream 5+ hours a day without making content that lives somewhere else please form a neat line so I can smack you all. People saying they have no time drives me nuts, but when they also "grind" all day AND say that, it makes me want to punch air.

1. Stream YouTube friendly content
2. Stop stream and edit content
3. Upload and plug twitch in the video
4. repeat

That is the only "grind" you should be on. Affiliate is stupid if the 3 viewers you have are all just you on a different ipad.

Luck

You know what? Maybe PewDiePie got lucky and that's how he is such a big YouTuber. Maybe early twitch streamers got all their views because they were early adopters. Or maybe these people only got lucky because they showed up and actually put the effort in.
There are plenty of videos on my channel that looked like flops at first. They got like a couple of hundred views and didn't do well. However, after continuously publishing, a whole bunch of them ended up blowing up and becoming some of the most-watched. Without publishing more videos they would have ended up dead in the water. Consistency > luck.
I don't believe too much in luck when it comes to doing very simple things (LIKE MAKING A YOUTUBE VIDEO) but you literally cannot win the lottery if you do not purchase a ticket, it's that simple.

Editing Software

A couple of people asked this so I thought I should add it here. I use davinci resolve for my videos. Previously, I used hitfilm or something like that I can't quite remember the name, but I had to switch because they don't allow you to have split audio channels (i.e. one for desktop audio and one for mic audio).
I've literally never touched any paid software like premier or anything because, again, I'm a cheap ass.

What should you upload to YouTube?

Seriously just look at Ludwig, smallant, DisguisedToast, literally every top Twitch streamer with a YouTube. All three of the people I just mentioned are over one million subs on YT and are top streamers, so they are definitely doing something right.
In terms of off-stream content, guides are king. If you're a small YT channel with ZERO subs you can still get thousands of views by hitting the search algorithm of YT. My first 3 videos were uncut gameplay, guide video, guide video, in that order. Guess which ones have tens of thousands of views and which has less than a thousand? Guide videos are insane for small channels.
Edit: Actually, let's just call it searchable content. Searchable content is king

Ending notes

I think that's about it for this post. Hopefully, I covered everything although I doubt I did. If you have any questions I'll try my best to answer them and will probably edit the good ones into the post.

SOLVED 02/03/2021

UPDATE: I may have fixed my issue by adding a secondary WiFi router (Apple AirPort Extreme) for the controller. Issue is no longer present and I'm positive this has to do with Google Fiber's Network Box WiFi radio interfering with something. This is unproven to help others yet but for fuck's sake I can game with the Stadia in my apartment finally!!! :')
​
Hardware:

• Google Stadia Founders' Edition x2
• 1000mbps via Google Fiber Internet (Proprietary Network Box)
• ChromeCast Ultra x2

Apologies for the word-salad below.. this issue has proven to be quite difficult to pin-point and solve. I'm hoping SOMEBODY out there will read this and post a fix, as Google Stadia and Google Fiber's customer support teams haven't been able to correct the issue and it's been multiple weeks of triaging.
​
The Issue:
Long-press commands like walking forward using the left stick, or holding down the boost button (A), will just stop sending after 5-15 seconds. The controller doesn't visibly disconnect and there are 0 error messages, and the game doesn't even freeze as I'm able to press other buttons. It just stops sending the walk-forward command (or any long-press command) which forces me to let go of the stick and press it back forward to get my character to start walking again.
What I've done to troubleshoot:

1. Thinking the issue was with the controller, I called Stadia support and went through EVERY troubleshooting step they advised. Hit a roadblock where the controller was still soft-disconnecting even when hardwired (looking back I think it was poor instructions from the agent as we never fully reset the controller after connecting to WIFI.)
   1. Was advised to replace or purchase another controller to confirm, got another controller and issue was still present.
2. I've confirmed that this issue only happens at my apartment. I purchased Stadia for entertainment while looking after my elderly dad in Louisiana for a few weeks. After hitting issues in Texas I decided to take both controllers with me just in case.
   1. Using his Cox Internet 150mbps, the issue was no longer present on either controller! It played like an absolute dream. No soft disconnects, no long-press drops. Streaming quality was as good as it was back home on my 1gbps.
3. After returning to Texas after two weeks of smooth sailing, was quickly reminded that the disconnect issue still persists. I guess taking it on a road trip DIDN'T fix it after all 📷I THEN DECIDED IT'S TIME TO SWAP OUT MY INTERNET BOX, mostly due to spending an hour on the phone with a google fiber tech explaining my conundrum, and doing even more troubleshooting steps until failure. He didn't see ANYTHING obvious nor telling on his end, and kept telling me that this situation of mine was quite unique for him. I reassured him that it was unique for the multiple people whom have tried to help me now, and to remember that I'm the customer suffering here lol.They couldn't mail me a replacement box or send a tech out, this issue doesn't fit their requirements. (Google Stadia is still a 3rd-party device and isn't in Google's umbrella apparently.) I'd have to drive downtown to their singular Google Space store and swap it out. I begrudgingly said, "screw it man I'll just don my PPE and face COVID head on."I trekked downtown, could not find anywhere to park, called their number on Google Maps to ask for parking instructions, was informed they aren't in Austin so can't help me and that they apologize... (the number on the Google Maps entry for Google Space is their Google Support number...) SO MOVING ON I ended up paying $20 for parking, took 10 minutes to swap my network box out, bought new cables on way home, got home and installed everything, fixed me a cocktail, confirmed internet was all good to go, fired up my stadia controllers and.............swapping network box did not fix the issue, though I did get a nice buzz from that cocktail.
4. I have replaced the ethernet cable from FiberJack to Network Box with new cables, replaced those cables with even newer cables. Replaced ethernet running from Network Box to my desktop. I turned off the TV, unplugged the coaxial cable, swapped out power supply for Network Box, swapped my underwear... Nothing seems to make a difference.
5. I have tried Port-Forwarding, I have tried switching between dual-band WIFI and single. I have turned off the TV Box's internet radio. I have factory reset my Stadia controllers multiple times, I have reset my phone and iPad (devices I used to set up the controller) multiple times. I even reset my TV a few times.. (yes resetting the TV unnecessary.. but I was resetting everything in my apartment and my microwave didn't have a button..)Perhaps this is just a wiring issue with Fiber underground?Perhaps this is some electrical interference only affecting a small area of Texas..Such a small area of Texas that the amount of Stadia users in that area are so small that... nobody else has ever complained about this to Stadia/Google before. IT'S BIZZARE THIS IS ONLY HAPPENING TO ME IN MY SMALL SLICE OF THE WORLD 📷:'(

As an added afterthought since I forgot to mention this clearly: **Stadia streams phenomenally on my all of my devices in my apartment.**This truly is a\*mazing technology! Having the controller + CCU work in Louisiana was fantastic!*
The workaround I currently use is an XBOX One controller + USB dongle.The input lag isn't bad at all and overall plays quite well..For example, I logged 15+ hours of cyberpunk2077, in 4k and on high frames mode, with that xbox controller without even batting an eye or noticing any issues.I only purchased the $100+ controller+CCU combo to add to my Stadia experience, instead it seems to have only taken away from it.

Edit: Thanks to u/Arcade23, this problem has been resolved. It turns out the battery was completely dead and none of the methods I was using to try & charge it were working. I got a dedicated charger & everything works great now. Thanks!
Original post text below in case anyone runs into a similar issue.
———
A game I’ve been playing a lot recently (Genshin Impact) just added controller support in the recent update, something I’ve been really looking forward to a lot ever since release. So, I bought myself a DualShock 4 (model CUH-ZCT2U) and got it paired.
Out of the box - without doing anything else - I played for a couple of minutes and was really, really happy with it. I noticed the battery had about a quarter-charge remaining, so I plugged it in to a USB phone charger to get it back up to full so that I could pull a little marathon session & I went to the grocery store.
I got back about an hour later & everything seemed fine until I pressed the PlayStation button to reconnect it to my iPad Air 4. The light on the controller blinked white a couple of times, then flashed red (which was the same color it had shown when connected) and then went off. In that time it had shown up on my battery widget as being fully charged.
So I went into my Bluetooth settings and it showed as disconnected. Thinking it was maybe a fluke, I pressed the PS button again and it did what it had previously done, except this time the red light stayed on for even less time. The status next to the device in Bluetooth settings switched over to “connected” for less than a second before going back to “disconnected.” I tried again, this time tapping the device’s entry on the list, and got a message saying:

Connection Unsuccessful Use the controls on “DUALSHOCK 4 Wireless Controller” to connect.

I’ve searched the internet high and low and seen a couple of people with similar problems, and followed all of the steps for solutions I’ve been able to find. Ive upgraded to the most recent version of iOS, I’ve disassociated all Bluetooth devices (including the controller, of course), I’ve reset my network settings, I’ve tried “charging” it by connecting it to my MacBook Pro - mid-2010, a classic that serves my needs even if it is a bit dated - although nothing seemed to happen when I did (no lights came on or anything), I even borrowed a connector from a neighbor that allowed me to connect the controller directly to the USB-C port. I’ve done a hard-reset using the small recessed button on the controller and a hard-reset on the iPad. I’ve tried all of these steps on my iPhone X as well, and I’ve done them all multiple times in every combination I can think of. The only result has been that the controller now connects for what seems like even less time now.
I’d really like to use this controller if possible. Does anyone have any tips or solutions that might help? I’m willing to try pretty much anything.
Thanks in advance!

Atari Mini Pong Jr. review

So I was immediately very interested in this when I first heard about it. I thought to myself “I’m so glad someone made this”. It took me a bit to warm up to the steep price tag , but I began to convince myself that it must be designed, engineered and built really well. I mean, it looks really cool. I had high hopes.
I figured that the paddles (spinners) would feel buttery smooth and provide solid control and accuracy with a good weight to them. I had this idea in my head that maybe the display is some kind of monochrome tech (like a kindle) with a high refresh rate and a super-crisp representation of the original 1973 Atari Pong arcade cabinet. Minimal but a perfect emulation in the visual aesthetics, sound and gameplay. Sadly, I was way-off.
Now before I get into it I want to mention that I am not very hard to please. But if I’m going to spend some significant cash on something, I expect to see a high level of quality. I have the Arcade 1up Ms Pac-man Countercade and I love it. That thing is beautiful. The controls are solid and the construction feels like arcade cabinet grade. The gameplay is a perfect accurate emulation of the original arcade game. I’m very happy with it in relation to how much it cost me. Unfortunately, I don’t feel the same way about the Mini Pong Jr. I’ve actually got a lot to say here, so I apologize in advance for how lengthy this post will be, but I wanted to be honest and thorough.

the physical unit

The design aesthetics of the Mini Pong Jr. case is definitely the best part. It looks beautiful and that really caught my eye and made me want it. But you’ll see that despite it's good looks at first glance, it’s still riddled with issues and poor design decisions.
Despite the official description’s efforts to tout this as “extremely portable” - it’s actually a rather large unit - and I actually like that about it. I will say that I have big hands and I occasionally found myself blocking my vision of my on-screen paddle, which can be frustrating when you’re trying to hit a fast moving ball. I wouldn’t mind it if the paddle controls were a little further from the screen.
Once you hold it in your hands, the case feels a bit pla-stic-ey overall. All of the buttons feel cheap when pushed, the layout of the buttons and ports were just slapped on the side without much thought given to ergonomics or aesthetics.
The power button is located right next to the micro USB power port, which means if you happen to have a 90 degree plug on your power cable, it covers up the power button and makes it difficult to get at.
Also, aesthetically it would be nice if the power port was centered on the side (between the two players).
And since we’re talking about the power port, I also noticed that if you wanted to hold it or rest it on a table vertically in landscape orientation, well they placed the micro USB power port on the bottom so you actually can’t do this while it’s plugged in. We know that’s the bottom because the screen has the score at the top of the screen, and the display would appear upside down if you orient it with the power cable coming out the top.
Then there’s a randomly placed ugly standard USB-A port littering the OTHER side right next to the beautiful Pong logo (which I guess is so you can charge other accessories like your phone?). This prevents it from having a nice simple clean looking ‘beauty’ side to have on display (on your desk or bookshelf). Also, it’s strange to me that they felt inclined to print the same line of copyright fineprint on both sides of the unit. It just adds to the clutter unnecessarily.
And let’s not forget to mention that they chose to sell you this without a rechargeable battery - and it takes a rather obscure battery type (one I’ve never heard of). So this means either we’re spending more money ordering one online and then waiting for it to arrive, or we’ll be forced to always play it with the power cord connected. I mean, you’ve got to be really scraping at things to cut corners on to make this cheaper to manufacture to leave out the battery. And it’s not like they were trying to keep the price point low or anything, so it just feels insulting to the consumer. Especially since they clearly advertise this product as ‘portable’, but technically it is NOT portable until you acquire the special battery.
And speaking of the power cable they provide… it’s short… really short. It’s like they didn’t really care about the fact that most people that first open the box will only be able to play this by plugging it in - limiting them to being 3 feet away from a wall outlet. That’s very awkward if you think about it. I know I had to get an extension cord to be able to play it on my kitchen table. All of these little things would probably be easily forgiven if the product was priced more reasonably, but I guess I just expected more at this price.
And then they decided to put the speaker on the bottom, which results in very muffled sound (especially if playing on a carpet or bed).

the controls

And then there are the paddles (or spinners) - this is really the main reason anyone would need to buy a standalone product for this game. In my opinion this is the most important thing to get right about Pong, and it can really make or break the whole experience.
All of the original versions of Pong dating back to the 1973 arcade cabinet were controlled by analog potentiometers, basically dials or knobs that had very smooth action to them. My memory of playing even the Atari 2600 version of pong with the paddle controllers was that your on screen paddle kept up perfectly with the speed in which you turn the dial. It felt like a direct connection with zero lag. It also had a level of sensitivity such that you could get from one side of the screen to the other side of the screen with a simple twist of the wrist. It was not necessary to roll the controller more than 180° and you did not need to adjust your grip on the knob (which would cost you valuable time). It was so sensitive that if your hand was a little shaky, you could see the on screen paddle shaking as well.
So the actual control the Mini Pong Jr.’s paddles provide is just terrible. It does NOT keep up with how fast you spin the paddles! The speed in which you can move your on-screen paddle is definitely CAPPED. This really throws everything off. Think about it, if you get into a groove playing and you know when you turn the paddle to a certain angle, the paddle should move to a consistent location onscreen, right? Well, once you hit that cap on how fast the paddle will move, you’ve thrown all of that off and there is no consistency, so you have to keep adjusting your grip on the paddle to be able to turn the knob further than you had to moments ago.
The movement of the onscreen paddles isn’t smooth either. It moves in chunky steps. It feels less like an analog input and more like a series of keystrokes that can only be pushed so fast before the speed is capped. Seems like the paddle moves in 5 pixel chunks. Very janky feeling. Very disappointing.
This is really the breaking point for me. If they kept everything else as is but got this part right, I’d ultimately be okay with it… but this is really completely unacceptable. I’m not sure if this is something that can be fixed with future firmware updates, or if the limitation lies in the paddle controller hardware. Only time will tell when folks start doing tear-downs on it.
Also aesthetically speaking, I was hoping for a high quality premium feel, but unfortunately the paddles just feel like cheap plastic. I mean how much would it have cost them to use a material with a little more weight to it, or a higher-quality true analog potentiometer? This was not the right place to cut corners.

onscreen gameplay / interface

The number one problem I have here is that overall it’s just not true enough to the original Atari Pong. If someone is willing to spend good money for a Pong game like this, it’s because of the nostalgia value it has. Pong is historically significant, as it is the first arcade cabinet ever produced and one of the first home video game systems you could buy. That’s a big deal. It’s important to represent it accurately. I feel like everything that they’ve done here to jazz it up is a step in the wrong direction. I wasn’t buying this because I wanted a fancy flashy new pong experience. In this case, less is more and it feels like they tried too hard to refresh and update the look and feel of the game.
Now, I don’t mind a refresh if they also include an accurate, minimal emulation of the original 1972 Pong as an option. If they do that, they can go hog-wild for all I care with fancy graphics and explosions and colors. But we are given no such options for different ‘skins’. There are also very limited gameplay options as well. No paddle size handicaps, no speed variations. Only 10 AI difficulty settings and up to 99 points to win the match. The Atari 2600 version of Pong had more game modes.
One of my biggest problems is… the music. They’ve added music to this. Bad music. Why. WHY? They really didn’t need to add music to Pong. It’s PONG. It’s not Tetris. It’s supposed to be minimal and dull. That’s it’s charm! I feel like they don’t get it. And of course, it wound’t be much of a problem if they gave us some control over it like a music volume so we can completely mute the music, just like every game in modern history has… but nope. You have to hear the music or nothing at all. It’s inescapable. From the moment you turn it on, to the moment it is turned off, you get this repetitive, low-fi cheesy, god-awful music. The music runs on a very short loop and becomes tedious very quickly. Nothing about he music is desirable, appropriate or relevant. Again, this is such a bad decision that could have been easily avoided or fixed. They could even put a music folder (it is an Android device, after all) so we could put our own MP3’s in it and it could shuffle them. A missed opportunity that wouldn’t be hard at all to implement.
The product’s page claims “User friendly controls / Easy to understand interface”. On the contrary, the interface for this is pretty bad. It’s very awkward and not obvious how to navigate the options the first time using it. Also, the overall presentation onscreen is just pretty weak and not polished - as if it were designed by programmers rather than artists. The screen that displays while waiting for a game to begin is just just plain ugly and confusing. You have to attempt to navigate it in person to understand how awkward and not-user-friendly it is. And it really wouldn’t take much to make this clean, simple, and more retro feeling.
Let’s talk a little about the flourishes. There are a number os special effects that are added during gameplay when the ball impacts the walls or the players’ paddles, kind of like particle effects or sparks. I don’t mind this so much, they’re kind of fun - but again I really do wish we had this available as an option and we could also play a simple no-frills emulation of the original 1972 game. I thought that was what I was buying based on the photos. The “YOU WIN” animation that plays is just awful. Colorful confetti rains down on the winning side with the most boring all-caps Helvetica text that says “YOU WIN!” accompanied by a really cheesy low sample rate female voice that sounds like they just asked the office bookkeeper to say it into the microphone. This totally breaks any retro immersion you might be experiencing with unnecessary color and speech and it just doesn’t feel very appropriate to the era (It looks more like it’s from the Windows 95 era). If they’re going to do something like this, it should be more tastefully done.
And speaking of breaking the retro immersion with color… there is a very ugly little green battery level indicator that is pretty much permanently positioned in the middle of the top edge of the screen, even during gameplay… and even if you don’t even have a battery installed! It’s completely unnecessary, it’s an eyesore, it clutters up the beautiful retro low-res monochrome simplicity of this game. It’s as if this Android device thinks it’s a phone. They could have easily put the battery level indicator in the options screen, and hidden it entirely if no battery is detected. It’s just sloppy UI design and it takes away from how clean and simple and beautiful this game could be.
Also, it looks like someone was trying to get creative with the score numbers that are prominently displayed on the screen during gameplay. Instead of going with the look of the original Pong, which was big fat blocky squared-off numbers, they tried to give it a more 80s LCD number look. Not true to the original at all, it really doesn’t make much sense and I really just wish they didn’t try so hard to jazz things up. Less is more when it comes to Pong.

there’s really no excuse

So this handheld console plays Pong - a video game that was invented nearly 50 years ago. That’s all it does. That’s all it’s built to do. That’s all it needs to be good at. And it costs $129. You might assume that it’s going to provide a premium Pong experience at that price. So how could it fail on so many levels. I mean, this is the year 2021. How is it possible that they could not produce an accurate emulation of a video game that was made in 1972.
I looked on the app store and downloaded a Pong game on my iPad last night called “Super Pong”. It’s fantastic It doesn’t have music during gameplay - only when you’re in the home screen, and that music is actually pretty awesome. There’s also a music button to shut it off (even though it only plays in the menu, they understood that it might annoy some people). There are several modes including “Retro 1972, Classic, Super, and PingPong”. Most importantly, you can move the paddle as fast as as you want to with zero lag or speed limiting. It was free (with ads). To remove the ads it cost me 99 cents. It even comes with an iPhone version, and an Apple Watch version (which is the only game I can think of that would be great on an Apple Watch because the digital crown is essentially the perfect paddle controller). This 99 cent app provided an infinitely better and accurate retro Pong experience than the $129 Mini Pong Jr. The only reason I would want to buy a standalone Pong game over the iPad app is to play with the paddle (spinner) controllers (which is how it should be played). I just wish that Unis got it right with this game. I really wanted to love this thing.
It feels like they were rushed to get this product out in time for Christmas (a deadline they ultimately missed). That’s the only explanation I can think of for having so many bad decisions. My only hope with this unit is that either the company Unis is dedicated to the ongoing development of this product by releasing software and or firmware updates, or the internet / YouTube community starts to publish guides and tutorials for various ways to hack, side load, and otherwise tinker with this device to improve the way it functions.
Thanks so much for sticking with this ridiculously long post/rant. I hope you found it useful, and I hope the developers are listening and willing to continue it's development, make software improvements, and refine the on-screen interface and design styling. It still might have the potential to be a fantastic little stylish piece of retro tech, but it's definitely not there yet.

A few things about me -

• I am a student (title... duh...)
• First Mac that I own, had previous experiences using friends'.
• I do not do video/audio editing (unlike most Youtube reviewers).
• I hated Macs from the bottom of my heart because of their price to performance ratio.

So let us start from the very beginning.
I didn't believe a single thing Apple claimed in the announcement, and also I didn't believe any of the early reviews. This is the same company who makes laptops that need to be run inside a freezer to get optimum performance (MBP 2018 if I am not mistaken) and hangs if 5 copy paste starts (happens to all MBAs of old of my friends). But the continuous stream of reviews convinced me a little. Barring the fact that most if not all reviews were of video editing, and maybe playing Shadow of the Tomb Raider at 30 FPS in medium. As if that is the only thing Mac users do. But if it can play a AAA title at 30FPS, then it is better than an Intel/AMD U-series chip. Also the RAM management seemed awesome. So I went for it.
And then the wait started............
It took exactly 29 days for me to place the order at the vendors' and him calling me up to get it. And today will be the seventh day that I have been using this continuously. And I mean continuously seriously, except for the time I am in the bathroom or sleeping I am always on this. Setting it up with my preferred softwares/apps, testing different settings, binging, etc.
I hear you ask, 'So how is it then?'
From the top then... (I will be mentioning most things as points ending with [Pro] or [Con] if I feel so)

1. This MBA is the first thing I have ever unboxed without a knife or any sharp object, that was a weird feeling.
2. The charger is sooooo small (compared to my other laptops), and the cable is almost as thin as a mobile charging cable.
3. The laptop feels denser than it looks, a similar-sized Windows machine usually looks thicker but feels lighter, because of the weight distribution of the components I assume, but this machine is thin and feels heavier than it should, but still much lighter than my gaming laptop. No complaints here.
4. And yes it switched on instantly, didn't need to press the power switch at first boot.
5. I know that iPads and iPhones need an internet connection to set up for the first time, the Mac didn't need it till I needed to use the AppStore.
6. The display is just f*cking gorgeous. I have a lot of monitors in my lab including good LG widescreens, none of them come close to the quality of this display.
7. It came with Big Sur 11.1 out of the box.
8. Next came setting things up, like moving the extremely annoying dock out of the way, made it small, shifted to the right and hid it.
9. Feels like MacOS is relatively more customizable out of the box than Windows is, but nowhere as close to a Linux DE.
10. It was already lunch-time by the time I tweaked a few settings. So I was watching some show online then, and my god the display is awesome and so is the audio quality, they are just fabulous.
11. I was dreading the keyboard since I personally use a mechanical keyboard with Cherry Red switches on my main workstation and given the horrible horrible quality of the butterfly keyboards I was genuinely scared. But fortunately, it turned out that my worries were unwarranted. The keyboard is pleasant to type on and I can type quite fast on it as well. But I will surely not claim that my speed is better than on my mech. The keys have relatively low travel but give reasonable feedback when typing fast.
12. Finally coming to the software. What I use mostly have ARM versions available. VSCode, Firefox, Brave, and a default terminal.
13. It is a bit difficult to find good, free software for the Mac, that is plentiful for my Linux system. I didn't find a good looking FOSS SFTP client to access my lab systems, paid options are there like Mountain Duck, but as I said free options are a little less, at least for my use case.
14. Battery life is very good, but DO NOT BELIEVE YOUTUBE REVIEWS about it.
15. It lasts long, very long compared to something else with similar performance. It barely lasts me a day, yes barely. Starting around 11 am or so, it lasts to about 8 pm or so given my use case, not continuous always, it is closed during physical meetings, breaks, etc, about 2 to 2.5 hrs.
16. I have Gmail open continuously, have at least 2 classes daily to either take or teach, so a continuous audio + video streaming + screen sharing. Along with this, I have Google Drive, Google Classroom and Youtube Music always open as well. Plus Google Colab, Jupyter Lab, Google Docs/Slides/Sheets tab also open half the time.
17. As for apps, I have Signal always running, itsycal, Rectangle, Flycut clipboard manager and a few other menu bar apps always running as well.
18. In between the day, I have a few video calls with other students, and I use the speakers whenever I am in my dorm room and headphones in lab.
19. At night I again watch something during dinner. After this my battery is usually at 2 to 3%.
20. I think it is a pretty normal use case for a student.
21. Just a point, I use Lulu, an open-source alternative to Little Snitch, it blocks outgoing connections from the system, like if I do not want Microsoft to know about how I am using VSCode, I can completely disable it's internet access to MS servers, and I have.
22. So approximately I am getting 7 to 7.5 hours of screen time given that many of the apps internet connection has been blocked giving a little more juice than normal.
23. I use VSCode (ARM version) to connect to files remotely. If it is left alone at night, it crashes by morning, don't know why. And I can't quit it even from the Activity Monitor. This has happened thrice till now with me. But it doesn't crash with local files.
24. Safari can't connect audio on Zoom. You have to use the app.
25. Not all ipad/iphone apps run when exported using iMazing like Netflix, and also if you need fullscreen in those apps, you are out of luck.
26. You cannot run .ipa files downloaded separately. Says integrity cannot be checked, this is after disabling SIP.
27. I have not compiled anything in Python or any other language for that matter in this laptop, used ssh to do whatever is needed, but I do plan on doing so soon.

​
Till now I feel it is worth it. It is light, loud and last long. If you guys want to know something specific, feel free to ask, and if it some extensive test you want me to run then I will give that update on my 1 month review.

Section 0: Background
Hi everyone! I’m trying to tailor this a bit more to reflect the UK Money Diary style where I give context on the week before and reflect on it after. I also added in some of the questions from the recent thread about what Refinery29 should ask diarists (see here).
I wrote this the week of Thanksgiving; my partner and I stayed in NYC instead of going home to either of our parents’ homes. We wear masks and stay socially distant when we leave the house. I’m thankful that we live close to a park and live on a block where we know and enjoy talking to our neighbors.
This was a relatively normal week for us during a pandemic, save for me spending a bit more than normal and it being Thanksgiving. We’ve both lived in the city since college and have so-so relationships with our families, so we didn’t leave for “home” when the pandemic hit.
I also just named my boyfriend instead of giving him an initial. He’s the only person I actually saw this week, but the initials always throw me off when I read these.
What do money and success mean to you? What are your end goals?
It helps me to see money as a tool. I never resonate with people who say “money doesn’t buy happiness” because to a certain degree, it does. Money enables me to live the life I want.
I’m pursuing FIRE (financial independence, retire early) and hope to be financially independent (able to live off my investments) by my early 30s. To do so, I save 60%+ of my income per month. I want this because working for 40 years isn’t sustainable for me—I have a very cushy tech job and still get anxiety and rage about waking up every morning to work, the rat race, and being paid inequitably to male peers. I’d like to give myself the option to leave this world as soon as possible.
As an alternative, I could see myself successful if I open a product consultancy, where I advise early-stage startups on product management, what to build for their MVP, and product-market fit. I’m really interested in tech ethics and the questionable practices in venture capital, so I’d love to be in a place where I could be picky about what clients I take and help truly mission-driven businesses thrive. I could see this also working as a small business incubator—why not apply what works in startups to small businesses?
I don’t yet have a firm picture of what I’d like my life to look like when I retire. I’m interested in spending a lot of time reading, traveling to new places for extended periods of time, and potentially writing a book. I get extremely interested in niche topics. Right now if I had to guess, I’d be writing a book about the ways multi-level marketing companies (MLMs) manipulate women.
Are you a spender or a saver?
Definitely a saver. My partner is more of a spender, and we’ve influenced each other well. Seeing him spend money on himself for video games helps me realize I can spend more money on myself for things I just want (see my big purchase for myself this week).
In turn, seeing me save a lot of money has motivated him to up his 401k contribution and overall savings. He’s also interested in FIRE, although I’d say my timeline is more aggressive.
If you could go back in time, what's the one piece of financial advice you would give to your past self?
Learn about investing, look up the terms you don’t know, and start doing it as soon as possible. Ask questions to people you know or on the internet.
On to the diary!
​
Section One: Assets and Debt
Investment Balance
$131,175

• Retirement (includes 2 company 401ks and 1 rollover IRA): $55,730
• Brokerage: $27,233
• Roth IRA: $25,439
• Managed account: $17,923
• HSA: $4,850

Equity if you're a homeowner
N/A, I rent in a HCOL city. No plans to own anytime soon
Savings account balance
$10,270
Checking account balance
$3,433 in checking account for bills

• This fluctuates, but I try to invest anything over $2k. I’m pretty conservative with my checking account buffer, and don’t worry much about the interest I’m “losing,” especially because interest rates are so low right now

$2,518 in checking account for rent

• I keep a holdover account that’s connected to Venmo and Zelle to pay rent

Credit card debt
N/A. There’s $1,348 currently on my credit cards, but I pay them all off in full each month. My parents signed me up for a credit card as soon as I was old enough and taught me about how important it was to pay in full. In fact, I think this was so hammered into my brain that doing anything other than that each month was never an option. Because of this, I’ve always thought of credit cards as similar to debit cards—only spend money you have.
Student loan debt (for what degree)
I was fortunate to go to college on a full scholarship, including living expenses. I studied psychology and sociology, and I graduated without any student loan debt.
​
Section Two: Income
Main Job Monthly Take Home: $6,570/month
I maxed out my 401k early this year, so for 8 months I was contributing $2,500/month out of my paychecks. That ended in September, so it changed my monthly take-home from about $4,650 to $6,570/month.
Deductions:

• 401k: $0/month (was $2,500/month)
• Medical: $128/month
• Dental and vision: $11/month

Income Progression

• I started in customer support right out of college, making $40,000/year + overtime, which ended up being about $52,000/year (thanks OT!).
• About a year later, I moved into an entry-level product role at the same company and received a raise to $60,000/year.
• The next year, I moved to a new company for a half-step promotion where I was making $82,000/year + 15% yearly bonus. The bonus was dependable enough that it was assumed as part of our total compensation, so let’s call it $95,000/year.
• Early this year, I switched companies again (noticing a theme?) for a promotion and now make $122,000/year.

I don’t have any other sources of income outside my main job. My partner makes a similar amount to me—about $117,000/year with bonus.
​
Section Three: Expenses
I live with my partner and we don’t have combined finances, but split many expenses 50/50. We use Splitwise to log transactions. He’s more laid-back about being paid back, but I’m much more “I don’t want to owe anyone anything, and I don’t want anyone to owe me anything” (I know, rigid, but I’m working on it!).
Splitwise is nice because it’d be ridiculous to Venmo request each other for a $4 coffee, but we can see how expenses are adding up. If someone has racked up a few hundred dollars of spending for both of us, the other person will cover our expenses for awhile. It works for us!
Rent
$2,200 for a 2 bed, 1 bath apartment in Brooklyn. We split rent 50/50.
Renters insurance
About $7/month for my portion. This covers all our possessions plus my boyfriend’s watches. He pays 75% of it because half of the monthly cost comes from the extra watch overage.
Savings contribution
I try to have about $10,000 sitting in my savings account at any given time, because it makes me feel safe in case of an emergency. I also like the freedom it enables, in case I wanted to leave my job and take a significant amount of time off. This is already at the $10k I want, so I don’t contribute to it monthly.
Investment contribution
It varies but on average I contribute $2,500/month to my brokerage account and Roth IRA (combined).
Donations
I try to donate about $200/month, but it’s pretty sporadic. This month I donated to the Yellowhammer Fund and Northwest Abortion Access Fund. One of my major goals for 2021 is to step up my donations and create an actual strategy around them, potentially involving a donor-advised fund.
Gas/electric
Our gas is $20-25/month and electric is $50/month. I pay gas and Will pays electric, both go in Splitwise. About $37/month total for me.
Wifi
Our wifi is $60/month, which goes into Splitwise—I pay $30/month.
Cellphone
I’m still on my parents’ phone plan—sheesh! This is convincing me that I should Venmo them for it each month.
Subscriptions
I pay for Hulu with ads, $5.99/month. My boyfriend pays for Netflix and we share a Spotify family plan with a couple of his friends, which I chip in $4/month for.
I also pay for the budgeting software YNAB (You Need a Budget) which is $84/year. I only pay it once a year in September.
Medical
I recently had to go to the emergency room for an overnight stay and follow up with some specialists. (I’m okay!) Because of that whole shindig I’m expecting to max out my deductible (and potentially my out-of-pocket-max) right at the end of the year. This will be about $4,000, but none of the claims have come through yet so I’m not sure of the exact total. I have a category in my budget for my deductible, and the rest will come out of my emergency fund.
Physical therapy
This month I’m starting pelvic floor physical therapy for dyspareunia (pain with intercourse).
I’d tried everything the internet suggested (“just relaaaaaax”) before getting the courage to find a new ob-gyn and ask her about it. She had some recommendations, but ultimately physical therapy was the “last resort” option that I’m now exploring.
My new physical therapist comes highly recommended but is out of network with insurance. Each session is $250, and I’ll go once every 2-3 weeks for the next few months as part of treatment. If you’ve worked through this problem (or are experiencing it now!) I’d love to hear your experience.
​
Section Four: Additional Questions
Was there an expectation for you to attend higher education? Did you participate in any form of higher education? If yes, how did you pay for it?
Absolutely. My dad was the first in his family to attend college and my parents made pretty calculated decisions about where they would live so I could go to the absolute best public school possible. Over 90% of students at my high school attend a 4-year college, and we start talking about it freshman year. To say college was encouraged in my environment is an understatement.
Growing up, what kind of conversations did you have about money? Did your parent/guardian(s) educate you about finances?
My dad has worked in finance since I was about 10. He’s always been really knowledgeable about both higher-level economic concepts and the minutiae of personal finance. My family is frugal, too: we clipped coupons and got clothes on super-sale at Kohl’s and Goodwill. I know there was a period of time when he became self-employed and money got very tight for a few years, but the bulk of those worries were largely kept from me.
Did you worry about money growing up?
Yes. While we were comfortable, we lived in such an affluent place that our family was in “the middle class” of the town and it made me worry more about money than I probably needed to. Think The Stepford Wives for context.
At what age did you become financially responsible for yourself and do you have a financial safety net?
In college, I became maybe 80% financially independent as I had a scholarship and worked part-time during school and over the summer, but I was still on their insurance.
I remember being frustrated in college because even though I knew I was extremely privileged, my friends in college had their parents pay their summer apartment rent and gave them an “allowance” of spending money, and I was “limited” by the options I could afford with the job I had. My dad told me at the time, “This is frustrating but it’s preparing you for actually having to live off the money you make in the near future.” (Great, great advice Dad.)
I’m technically still financially dependent on my parents for my cell phone bill, but otherwise I pay for everything: rent, insurance, utilities, food, therapy, and all wants in the form of clothing, workout classes, etc. I could ask my parents for money if I absolutely needed to, but would use it as a last resort.
Do you or have you ever received passive or inherited income? If yes, please explain.
I have an account (mentioned above) that a family friend who’s a hedge fund manager, well, manages. I believe the initial deposit was $1000 over 10 years ago, but that money wasn’t mine either, it’s all a gift. It’s not very liquid—it’d take me several months (and some very good reasoning) to get any of that money withdrawn, since it’s supposed to be for “the future” (which I guess I could argue is now?).
I might receive a small amount of money when my grandmother passes, but it’d probably be around $1-2k, if at all.
​
Day 1 Wednesday, November 25, 2020
8:30am Wake up and shower, take my vitamin C gummies, then make coffee. I wasn’t much of a daily coffee drinker until my offices had it for free, and now I’m definitely addicted. I don’t really care if the coffee is shitty or not, I just put some milk in it and it’s great. Right now I’m trying to drink half or three-quarter cups so I can attempt to pull back my addiction a bit. I log onto work at 9am.
11:30am Eat leftovers from last night for lunch—quesadilla + Spanish rice. There’s an incredible Mexican restaurant by us, and now I am ruined for the tacos, quesadillas and nachos from any other place.
12:30pm Will picks me up in the U-Haul. We’re driving about 20 min away to pick up a butcher block desk he bought off Craigslist, which ends up being from a small office that’s downsizing. The desk is $150 which he pays for. We love the office’s style (and the owner is super nice!) and walk around while he shows us what else he’s trying to get rid of.
We end up buying an extra-large ZZ plant and two side tables from him for an extra $120, way less than we would have paid for the quality elsewhere. My half will be $60, and I’ll split the U-Haul too, $44.51. $82.26
2:45pm That ended up taking a lot longer than we expected! We get back and unload the van, then I bring stuff inside while Will returns the van to the U-Haul location. I jump back onto work—so much for a slow afternoon before Thanksgiving. AWS is down, which powers a lot of our engineering work (and a lot of the internet!) so a lot of our teams are basically twiddling their thumbs. We chat about how to message the outage to customers.
5:45pm Will starts making dinner (braised chicken and veggies) and I sit down to read with a strawberry Chobani, but I end up just reading Reddit and searching for new podcasts to listen to.
7:45pm Dinner was great! Now…ice cream.
9:43pm I remember that my mom sent me ideas for her and my dad’s Christmas presents, so I order on Etsy and Amazon. My dad gets a mug with an Ernest Hemingway quote (“write drunk, edit sober”) ($21.54) and a book on writing ($16.63), and my mom gets this food warming tote contraption she wanted ($43.52). We’ve been paring down Christmases over the years—this year I asked for the Europe version of Ticket to Ride. $81.69
11:15pm I finish up the first episode of Real Housewives of Salt Lake City with some white cheddar Cheez-Its to snack on. After, I start on the dishes from dinner. I listen to the Product Market Misfits podcast while I do dishes—the episode with Kristen Anderson from Catch is great, highly recommend if you’re tired of just hearing stories about stereotypical Silicon Valley tech companies.
Day 1 Total: $166.69
Day 2 Thursday, November 26, 2020
10am Wake up super late since I stayed up scrolling on my phone too late last night. We make coffee and set out for a long walk around 11:15am.
12:05pm At the end of our walk, we swing by our local liquor store and buy 4 bottles of wine (red, white, rose, champagne). Will pays, total is $63.15 for everything. We haven’t had wine in the apartment for ages and I’m excited to have some stocked up. $31.57
12:30pm Get back from the walk, shower, then turn on football. I actually don’t really care about any NFL teams (I like college football a lot more), but it’s such calming background noise for me that I find myself looking for games when I have downtime. We also recently found out that Will’s friends’ dog only has a few months to live, so we order some jerky treats and a squeaky toy for him. $14.07
2:30pm We head out to the restaurant we’re going to for Thanksgiving lunch, a local place a short walk from our apartment. They’re doing a prix fixe menu of the classics—turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, green beans, and a phenomenal tarte Tatin with ice cream for dessert.
We eat outside under heat lamps. It’s super cozy. With our bottle of wine and tip the total is $208 (I try to tip over and above the norm because it’s a pandemic and Thanksgiving). My half will be $104.
5:53pm Get back from the restaurant. We have a ton of leftovers which is awesome (I think it’s excessive frugality, but I almost expect to stretch takeout or restaurant meals into two meals). Exchange some texts with my friends about their socially-distant Thanksgiving celebrations.
I turn on the Washington vs. Cowboys game right at the halftime show, which is Kane Brown with the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders. They’re all wearing masks (except for Kane) and it’s so odd to see them dancing in masks. I mean, I’m glad they’re wearing them, but it just seems like we could have gone without the halftime show this year.
9:21pm I order contacts from Contacts Direct. I got a new prescription but didn’t have a great experience with the eye doctor, so I’m hesitant about this order—only ordered one box of 90 lenses for each eye instead of a year’s worth of lenses. I’ve been getting headaches pretty frequently, so I’m hoping getting a new pair of glasses and alternating those (instead of wearing my contacts for 16 hours a day, every day) will help. $29.98 after insurance benefits
Day 2 Total: $179.62
​
Day 3 Friday, November 27
8:56am Wake up super last minute, run to sign onto Slack and then start grinding coffee beans. I’m online and drinking a big mug of coffee by 9:10. (So much for half cups.)
10:45am Come up for air from work and grab the stuff to make a bagel. Everything bagels and plain cream cheese are my go-to combo.
12:03pm I grab a bag of clothes to drop off at the donation bin and a couple library books to return. The library is about a 25 minute walk so it’ll be a nice lunch break diversion.
12:56pm After the library I stop by the grocery store for some paper towels and sponges, since we’re almost out. Total is $22.62, my half is $11.31
1:09pm When I get home I jump back into work and put the USA vs. Netherlands game on my second monitor. By the 75th minute, the US is up by 2 goals so they start putting in some younger players—it’s fun to see Midge Purce and Sophia Smith play! I also throw some bagel bites in the oven for a quick snack and promise myself dinner will be healthier.
4:23pm I zone out of work and start playing Among Us. I end up playing for over two hours. We open a bottle of wine at some point and I get super tipsy.
6:50pm Turn on the tail end of the Notre Dame vs. UNC game. It turns into Jeopardy, which turns into Wheel of Fortune, which I’m not mad about. P isn’t as into the game shows and leaves to microwave a plate of leftovers from Thanksgiving dinner and play video games.
8:40pm Finally getting hungry after my bagel bites and Cheez-Its this afternoon and make a plate of Thanksgiving leftovers—turkey, mashed potatoes, green beans and cauliflower. Yum.
Will and I end up getting in a tiff about the mess in our apartment so we take a break, cool down and talk it through. I watch a couple episodes of Sister Wives and go to bed around 1:30am.
Day 3 Total: $11.31
​
Day 4 Saturday, November 28, 2020
10:05am I stayed up late (again) so it’s nice to sleep in. I play Among Us for awhile and have a couple rounds where I’m the impostor and get some great kills and wins. I run out into the living room and celebrate with Will. We laugh because it’s silly how much we love the games we play. Around 10:45 I start making coffee.
11am We desperately need new sheets because our fitted sheet has a huge hole at Will’s feet (and it’s growing). I search a women’s personal finance group I’m in on Facebook for recommendations and we end up buying a queen sheet set from Belk. Total was $100.71 with their sale. $50.35
1pm I was planning on returning a package to the post office today, but forget it closes at 1pm on Saturdays so I decide to run to Target instead. I have a lampshade to return and want to look for a shower caddy as well. I also have an old iPad to return, which Will tells me I can do at Best Buy. He finds an old iPod and flip phone I can take too.
Take the MTA there ($2.75 for a single fare). When I get there, it’s a madhouse and I remember that I have sillily (is this a word?) decided to come on the weekend of Black Friday. I stand in the returns line for about 15 minutes and get $10.89 back, but ditch the idea of trying to look for a shower caddy. The checkout line looks like 100 people long. -$8.14 because of return
Next I go to Best Buy, but who am I kidding—the line to get in the store is even longer than the Target checkout line. I walk back to the subway and get on to go home. $2.75
2:30pm Since Best Buy was a no go, I search for electronic recycling around me on the way home just to see where I could drop off the devices I have. Apparently there’s an EcoATM not too far from my subway stop. It’s more for selling devices, but if they can’t give you money for something, they’ll recycle it, which is exactly what I wanted. I put each of the pieces in the scanner, and end up getting a whopping $2 total (for Will’s old iPod). Still cool because I was just expecting to recycle it all. I’ll give Will the $2.
2:44pm There’s a Dunkin nearby so I pop in to grab a couple donuts ($2.90). There’s a woman outside asking for money, so I give her $5 cash. $7.90
3:00pm Last stop—our favorite deli is nearby and Will mentioned he wanted to get bacon there recently. I get a 1/2 lb and salivate on the way home. This is one of those things I won’t put in Splitwise because it’s small and because it’s fun to get for P as a tiny little present. $3.50
3:45pm Once I’m home I’m super hungry from only eating carbs all morning so I have a snack of carrots, hummus and some pepperoni. I head back out to drop off a bag of clothes and shoes at a drop box a few blocks away. The neighbors are outside at the park near our house so I stop and chat with them for a few minutes. Their kids are the cutest.
6:47pm For dinner I make a ham and cheese sandwich (panini style with rosemary butter) and more carrots and hummus. I put on another episode of Sister Wives. These people are so fascinating to me—first off, I think the husband is completely full of himself. But I’m also so curious about the wives. There are a lot of talking head testimonials where the parents explain that they’re “oppressed” because they’re different and want to go public so the world can see polygamy as a valid family style (I’m only on season 2).
I know they’re probably playing up the “we love our other sister wives and have so much fun together even without Kody” aspect because people expect sister wives to be catty and hate each other, but I can’t help but wonder why they need to be in plural marriage to get the same friendship they seem to value so much. I also doubt they’d extend the same grace and tolerance they want to people who are “different” because they’re LGBTQ, or “different” because they’re in an open relationship or marriage.
9:15pm I mix together oatmeal chocolate chip cookie batter and put some cookies in the oven. While I’m waiting, I browse Zocdoc for well-reviewed providers—I want to make a podiatrist appointment for a lingering toe issue and an audiologist appointment for a routine hearing screening. I got the idea to make these appointments since I’ll hit my out-of-pocket max with the hospital visit, making them free or very discounted. I make two appointments for next week.
I also lust over a Farm Rio puffer jacket that feels overpriced but I just love. Maybe I’ll buy it tomorrow since they’re having a 30% off sale.
Day 4 Total: $64.50
​
Day 5 Sunday, November 29
8:58am Wake up and switch between scrolling on Reddit and playing a few Among Us games. After a bit Will gets out of bed and makes coffee for us.
9:45am Will finishes the movie he started last night and we start on breakfast. We’re making the bacon I bought yesterday, breakfast potatoes with onions, and a fried egg for Will (I can’t stand the taste or smell).
11:00am Yum! Breakfast was great. I watch a couple episodes of Sister Wives and mull over buying that ridiculous but amazing puffer jacket from Farm Rio. I’ve still been thinking about it since last night and I might take the plunge.
1:25pm I get a jolt of motivation to work out and do a 20 minute Sydney Cummings video on Youtube. I heard about it from a recent Money Diary posted here! After it’s done I’m so, so tired. I stretch and unpause my episode of Sister Wives.
2:22pm I help Will move the butcher block slab for his desk out to our backyard. We live on the first floor of a single-family home that was converted into apartments, so we get the backyard too—it’s awesome to have outdoor space in the city. P works on sanding it and applying poly for the next couple hours.
5:07pm Will suggests pizza for dinner and I am always, always down for pizza. I order pickup from the spot down the street—one grandma, one cheese and 2 orders of garlic knots come to $38.60. We’ll have leftovers for tomorrow too. $19.30
5:50pm We pick up the pizza and dig in. While we’re eating we turn on the Chiefs vs. Buccaneers game; Will has a few players on his fantasy team in this game.
6:57pm I sign up to write letters to Georgia residents encouraging them to vote in the Senate runoff elections in January. This is through Vote Forward—I did 20 letters for the general election in November and want to participate again. I’ll print the letters at a local coffee shop since we don’t have a printer at home.
Will sends me this Reddit comment about campaign finance since we’ve been talking about it recently. I decide I’m convinced by the argument and set up a $5 monthly donation to Brand New Congress. $5
8:19pm After texting back and forth with my friend all day, I buy the puffer jacket—so excited. She encouraged me to get it and is pumped for me too. $228.64
I also notice my paycheck has started processing in my checking account (I get paid tomorrow), so I enter the amount in YNAB and budget it all. I earmark about $1500 to go into my brokerage account tomorrow. I won’t include it here as “spending” since it’s included in the overview section above.
Day 5 Total: $252.94
​
Day 6 Monday, November 30
8:43am Wake up and turn on my Slack. Will started the coffee process and I finish it up by pouring the water into our Chemex and letting it steep (I know there’s a coffee-centric word for this...).
8:56am I check my Citi card and my YouTube TV trial rolled over—I was going to cancel it this morning, which I thought was the last day. I email support to see if they’ll refund me, because (I promise I’m not just saying this!) I did have a pretty bad experience. The Roku app was glitchy for us every time we watched something. Maybe they’ll feel nice today! $64.99
9:35am After responding to a few work messages, I run out the door to the post office to avoid a long package line. I did the Warby Parker 5-day home try on and have to return my box of glasses today. I found a pair I really like and am excited to get in the habit of wearing glasses again, instead of just my contacts.
Thankfully the line is only a few people long. The employees are also super nice every time I go, so I try to be really pleasant too. The lines are usually long and I’ve seen more than one adult have a fit at this post office. It’s rainy today and I couldn’t find our umbrella, so my flimsy rain jacket gets pretty soaked through on the walk back.
11:35am My podiatrist appointment is supposed to be tomorrow morning, and they call me to tell me since I haven’t hit my deductible, I’ll have to pay out of pocket for the visit. I explain that I’m 100% going to hit my deductible, the claims from the hospital just haven’t processed yet. I ask her to bill my insurance first for the visit, then I can pay whatever ends up not being covered (if anything). She agrees!
Maybe this is standard, but I’ve never had it happen before—even if I haven’t hit my deductible, I’ve always been to offices that bill insurance first, then I pay the remaining balance.
1:05pm Lots of meetings today. I break for lunch and heat up the braised chicken with veggies. It’s definitely on its last good day, so I’m glad I used it up. Still yummy!
2:20pm Woohoo! Get an email that my YouTube TV charge was refunded. -$64.99
Will ran to Home Depot today to buy some tools for his desk and also got a shower curtain liner since ours is ripping. I go to put it up in the bathroom but my arms are so sore—like I got my flu shot type of sore.
5:05pm Sign off work after trying to wrangle a supremely frustrating SQL query. I don’t get it but figure I can ask our analyst team for help tomorrow. Will will have a late night working, so pizza and Sister Wives is in my near future.
While watching, I update YNAB to reflect the end-of-month balances for my investment accounts. I get a huge dopamine hit by seeing my net worth number go up. I’m also anticipating it going down a bit next month because of my medical bills, so I relish the moment.
8:09pm It suddenly dawns on me that my arms are sore because I worked out yesterday. It’s so rare now that I literally forget when I do it. Ha!
9:15pm We watch the Eagles vs. Seahawks game and I absentmindedly play Among Us. I end up getting ...bullied by a person playing it? They get mad that I figured out they were the imposter and start saying all these schoolyard-type digs throughout the next couple rounds, but level 100 of cruel.
I’m embarrassed by how sad it makes me but think maybe it’s a good thing I don’t immediately know what to say to bully people back. Such a weird experience. I end up going to bed around 11:30.
Day 6 Total: $0
​
Day 7 December 1, 2020
7:07am Wake up late for my alarm at 7. I’m up a lot earlier today because my podiatrist appointment is first thing. I get dressed in the dark, kiss P goodbye, grab my water bottle and run out the door to the subway by 7:30. $2.75
8:10am Get to my stop and swing by Starbucks before the appointment. I get a vanilla latte and the bacon cheddar and egg sandwich. Total is around $10 but I have a gift card loaded onto my Starbucks app.
My spending here went way down when I switched jobs to an office not close to a Starbucks, and then stopped going into an office at all.
8:30am My appointment goes great, if a little painful when she numbs my toe. I had to get an ingrown toenail removed. I danced ballet and pointe for years so I’m (unfortunately) used to them, but this one was terrible. The doctor and I bond over both being dancers with bad feet and they schedule me for a follow up two weeks out.
She actually says there’s been a rise in these procedures because people aren’t getting pedicures since the pandemic and aren’t cutting their toenails well! Wild.
I look silly on the subway in December wearing Birkenstocks and socks with a huge toe bandage. It looks like one of those cartoon characters who stubs their toe and it becomes 10x bigger than their other toes. $2.75
9:40am I get off at the stop before mine to stop at Rite Aid. I grab Neosporin, band-aids and epsom salt and check my notes for anything else she mentioned about caring for my toe. $12.97
10:00am When I get home, I hop into work and working with our engineers on a promotion for the New Year. I also catch up with Will since he stayed up late last night and I got up early for my appointment. He says he ended up staying up until 3:30am (!!) cleaning up his tools, working on his desk and putting up the shower curtain. I’m floored that he is functional right now after waking up at 8.
12:15pm Heat up the last of the pizza for lunch, along with hummus and carrots.
5:20pm Work is average-paced for the rest of the day. Not doing nothing, not totally over my head. Will puts in potatoes for baked potatoes to have later, which we’ll pair with a salad. We’re getting close to needing a grocery run again, so the meals are becoming more of a mishmash.
We listed a couple things on our local Buy Nothing group last week, so a woman comes by to pick up a wifi router we can’t use anymore. Would totally recommend looking up if there’s a group in your area—they’re usually on Facebook.
6:30pm After dinner I watch more Sister Wives and look up RIP Medical Debt, a nonprofit one of my friends shared for Giving Tuesday. They buy unpaid medical debt from collections, so $1 ends up paying off $100 of someone’s medical debt. I give $50 to the Arkansas campaign, which will clear $5,000 of medical debt.
As Will said earlier today, “medical billing in America is a racket” so I really hope this helps clear a burden from an individual or family. Doing this reminds me to check my insurance portal, which is steadily going up as each separate claim comes in. Ahhhh, modern healthcare! $51.49
At the end of each day please tally up your daily expenses. Then at the end of your diary please tally up all expenses in the following categories:
Total: $719.33

• Grocery + Dining Out: $157.77
• Fun + Entertainment: $0
• Home + Health: $164.67
• Clothes + Beauty: $228.64
• Transportation: $11.00
• Gifts + Giving: $157.25

​
Reflection This week felt like a big spending week for me. I checked YNAB and since January, I’ve spent about $1600 per month, not including rent—so about $400/week. That’s why this week’s $719 feels so high!
Writing this diary helped me understand how many things I have going for me. I’ve recently been in a huge funk—about my health, my performance at work and my relationships with family, friends and P. Going to the hospital, needing physical therapy to have sex and being in a pandemic will do that to you.
I was able to zoom out a bit and understand how stable and gratifying my life is. That being said, I’m so glad this community exists. I really love it and learning about all your spending and saving habits. Thanks for being here and sharing :)

• Tweak name & description (Most descriptions I used are the developer’s one ,some are from idownloadblog.com and some I added ,as not all tweaks has description and some has vague or very long description).
• Repo.
• Free or Paid&Price.

Tweak list :
App Firewall (iOS 10-13) : Take control of apps' network access with AppFirewall! AppFirewall intercepts outbound connections and prompts for your permission before continuing, similar to iOS' other permissions. Afterwards, you can manage which sites are allowed & blocked in settings. Repo : http://apt.thebigboss.org/repofiles/cydia/. Free.
DoubleCut : let’s you bind text to a specific key and you can choose double tap, triple tap or hold. Repo : BigBoss. Free.
WiCarrier : Replaces status bar's carrier name field with the currently connected WiFi network. Repo : https://rpetri.ch/repo/. Free.
WiFiCarrier+ : WiFi network name and IP address in status bar. Repo : https://phil-highrez.github.io/repo/. Free.
MYbloXX : System wide Ad blocker. Repo : https://myxxdev.github.io/. Free.
BlockYouX : Systemwide Ads blocker. Repo : https://cydia.ceadd.ca/. Free.
UHB - iOS 9/10/11/12 (Untrusted Hosts Blocker) : System wide ads blocker. Repo : https://repo.thireus.com/. Free.
No Typing Indicator 13 : This tweak blocks the typing indicators from showing in iMessage. You can still see others typing but they will not see you typing. Repo : https://cydia.ceadd.ca/. Free.
AppStore++ : Allow downgrade apps in AppStore , block updates ,pypass 200MB download limit , disable search ads & disable app thinning. Repo : https://cokepokes.github.io/. Free.
SiriUnlock : Allow Siri to access sensitive data when phone is locked (i.e read text messages , show notes & contacts). Repo : https://cokepokes.github.io/. Free.
Kairos 3 : Kairos makes it easy to schedule messages to be sent at specific times. With options to have messages repeat to send on certain days of the week. Repo : https://supporter.cpdigitaldarkroom.com/repo/. Paid : 10$
TabBlocker : TabBlocker is able to block the opening of new tabs for specified websites.A lot of times when I try to watch a video, or open certain webpages that contain allot of ads. I get redirected to a new tab almost directly. TabBlocker will ask you if the webpage is allowed to open new tabs, or just block them. Repo : BigBoss. Free.
Spy : Allow you to Log and share usage of your apps when lending your phone to someone and see what apps tried to open and what time. Also has the ability to lock the phone or start alarm when chosen apps are lunched . Activation by CC toggle or Activator gesture. Repo : https://repo.packix.com/. Paid : 1.99$
Truecuts : Truecuts is a tweak for Siri Shortcuts that enables all automation triggers to run without prompting. Repo : BigBoss. Free.
StopShortcutsNotifications : This tweak prevents the shortcuts app from sending notifications. Repo : http://itsjafer.com/repo/. Free.
iCleaner Pro : iCleaner can free up space by removing unnecessary files from your device. Also allow you to manage Launch Daemons, Substrate addons & Preference Bundles. Repo : https://ib-soft.net/cydia/beta/. Free.
iSponsorBlock : iSponsorBlock | Automatically skip annoying sponsorships in YouTube videos. Repo : https://galactic-dev.github.io/. Free.
Messenger No Ads : Remove ads for Facebook Messenger app. Disable read receipt. Disable typing indicator and more. Repo : https://haoict.github.io/cydia/. Free.
HalFiPad : iPhone X Gestures: iPad StatusBarFloating Dock. Split & Slide Over. iPhone X Keyboard. Dark Keyboard. Swipe To Screenshot and more. And more features. Repo : BigBoss. Free.
LocationService (CCSupport) : You can turn on / off LocationService from the control center. Repo : https://cydia.ichitaso.com/. Free.
CCLinker : This tweak will let you navigate to the respective settings for the Control Center Module by using Gestures! Repo : Packix. Free.
WiFi List : See all the WiFi password you entered in your device (or another device if you have iCloud) You can even create a QR code for easy sharing. Repo : https://www.icaughtuapp.com/repo/. Free.
FreePIP : FreePIP is a tweak to un-snap and scale the view of Picture-in-Picture on iOS unlimitedly. Features : Snap / Un-snap the view by long-press the PiP view. Unlimited scaling. Repo : Packix. Free.
Similar tweak to FreePIP is BigPiPEnergy : Repo : http://itsjafer.com/repo/. Free.
CCModules Pro : Cellular Data expandable view. WiFi expandable view. Bluetooth expandable view. Hotspot button gesture. Power Actions module. Repo : Packix. Paid : 2.50$
CCModules : Add extra modules to your CC ( I use it to add silent mode ). Repo : https://jb365.github.io/. Free.
CC On & Off : toggle off WiFi and Bluetooth from CC. Repo : https://poomsmart.github.io/repo/. Free.
Snapper 2 : Snapper is a tweak that lets you crop a portion of the screen and keep it floating on the screen. Copy text from images to your clipboard. Repo : Packix. Paid : 3.00$
GoodWiFi : Remove RSSI Limit. Show Know Networks. Show Mac Address. Repo : https://julioverne.github.io/. Free.
MusiLyric : Fetch Lyrics on Music, Spotify, TIDAL, Pandora & LockScreen. Fetch in Background with best performance no Lags. After Fetch Lyric will Available Offline. Use Private API Musixmatch Database. Repo : https://julioverne.github.io/. Free.
Lyricify : With Lyricify you can easily view the lyrics to your songs on your lock screen. With lyrics support for songs played through Spotify, Soundcloud, TIDAL, Apple Music or any other prominent streaming service. Repo : Chariz. Paid 0.99$
DynamicTimer : DynamicTimer will dynamically change the timer sound between "Stop Playing" and a ringtone. If there is any music playing when the timer goes off it will stop it otherwise it will play the ringtone you set up in the settings. Repo : BigBoss. Free.
CarBridge (iOS 13, Lite) : View any app in CarPlay! Features include: View your device's screen on your CarPlay enabled display Watch DRM-free videos and play games directly on your car (google to check DRM status) Control your phone with touch right from your car without picking your phone up Activate your phone's home button by tapping the portal icon in the CarPlay dock. Repo : Packix. Paid : 4.99$
TFDidThatSay?: See what those pesky "[deleted]" comments and posts were without leaving Reddit! Repo : https://lint.github.io/repo/. Free.
ReProvision : keep applications signed even after 7 days are up. Automatically resigning of locally provisioned applications. Repo : https://repo.incendo.ws/. Free.
Sentinel : Sentinel is designed to help you avoid having to re-jailbreaking your device when you run out of battery. When the battery charge reaches a user-set percentage it will initiate a fake shutdown. Repo : https://repo.dynastic.co. Free.
Harpy : List all users on your local network/hotspot. Block Users from connecting to the internet on your local network. Block users from using your hotspot network. Repo : Packix. Paid : 1.49$
Choicy : Disable tweak injection for every process individually. Configure each tweak dylib for every process individually. Disable tweaks globally (with the ability to set exceptions for individual processes). Option for an application shortcut to launch the application with or without tweaks. Repo : https://opa334.github.io/. Free.
Safari Plus : Force Https. Upload any file and download manager. Custom user agent. And many more privacy, actions , gestures and customization for Safari. Repo : https://opa334.github.io/. Free.
White Point Module : Control Center module to toggle the "Reduce White Point" functionality. Long press / force touch to change the intensity. Repo : https://opa334.github.io/. Free.
ScreenshotActions : Copy latest screenshot to the clipboard & delete it. Uploading screenshots directly to Imgur. Share screenshots. Repo : Packix. Free.
SwipeToDeleteContact : Simple Swipe to delete an Contact. Repo : BigBoss. Free.
FLEXing : Open Flex anywhere! Repo : https://nscake.github.io/. Free.
HostsBlockerToggle (beta) : disable / enable host file from CC. Repo : https://petitstrawberry.github.io/cydia/. Free.
DontStopMyCall : It disable hangup of phone’s call when press lock button. Answer incoming call by pressing lock button 2 times. Pressing lock button 3 times will answer call using speaker directly. Repo : Packix. Paid : 1.50$
SwipeExtenderX : supercharges the iOS keyboard with up to 20 different swipe gesture-based actions to help make the process of typing on an iPhone even easier than it already is. Repo : https://repo.chariz.com/. Paid : 2.49$
SITUM Pro : SITUM Pro adds a new button to your Text Selection Menu which helps you look up the text you selected. Also with translation feature. Repo : Packix. Paid : 1.50$
VolSkip11 : Skip tracks & play/pause with volume buttons. Repo : https://cydia.rob311.com/repo/. Free.
Powercuff : Exposes access to hidden power throttling modes for better battery life. Repo : https://rpetri.ch/repo/. Free.
ConfirmPasteboard : Allow or deny apps accessing the clipboard. Repo : https://repo.co.k. Free.
NoClipboardForYou : Prevent apps from accessing your clipboard. Configure from Settings. Repo : https://shiftcmdk.github.io/repo/. Free.
Succession : Restore without updating. Repo : https://samgisaninja.github.io/. Free.
CCRinger13: Add a slider for ringer to control center volume module. Repo : https://shepgoba.github.io/. Free.
Night Shift Module : Change night shift from control center. Repo : https://shepgoba.github.io/. Free.
FUGap : Get rid of the ugly gap at the top of the control center !! Repo : Packix. Free.
YouPIP : picture in picture for YouTube &twitch . Repo : https://spicat.github.io/. Free. Best combination is YouPIP 0.0.6.2 and YouTube 15.22.4
Apps Manager : Wipe , backup , restore Appdata for installed apps. Repo : http://tigisoftware.com/cydia/. Free.
Filza File Manager 64-bit : File manager. Repo : http://tigisoftware.com/cydia/. Free.
YouTube Reborn : Features : - No Homescreen and No Video Ads (Both are on by default) - Enable Background Playback. - Allow HD On Cellular. - Disable Age Restriction. - No Stories (Beta). - Disable YouTube Kids Popup. - Enable iPad Style On iPhone. - Hide Tab Bar Labels- Hide Tabs (Explore, Upload [+], Subscriptions, Libary). - Picture-In-Picture (iOS 14+)- Video. - Downloading. - and many more features. Repo : https://repo.twickd.com. Free.
DockX : Add pasteboard shortcuts to your keyboard dock! Repo : http://udevsharold.github.io/repo/. Free.
Shortmoji : Bring life back into your keyboard by bringing tons of useful functionalities to the unused keyboard space. Shortmoji comes packed with tons of options to customize Keyboard, Predictive Bar and Keyboard Dock. Repo : https://miro92.com/repo/. Free.
Flex 3 Beta : Flex 3 is an incredible platform that lets jailbreakers create their own patches for the system or for installed apps.Moreover, a cloud-based system lets users mingle with one another by sharing their patches with the rest of the Flex 3 community. Repo : http://getdelta.co/. Free.
Activator : centralized gestures , buttons and shortcut management for iOS. Repo : https://rpetri.ch/repo/. Free.
Relocate Reborn : Minimalist GPS spoofer iOS 13+. Repo : https://repo.nepeta.me/. Repo is down , get it from here https://archive.org/details/relocate-tweak-module-and-app. Free.
CopyLog : CopyLog is a powerful clipboard history manager for iOS, it’s easy to use, works on both iPhone and iPad and will help you keep track of what you’ve copied on your device. Repo : Packix. Paid :2.49$
AppSync Unified : AppSync Unified is a tweak that patches installd to allow for the installation of unsigned, fakesigned, or ad-hoc signed IPA packages on an iOS device. AppSync Unified can be used to downgrade or clone installed apps, to download fakesigned IPAs. Repo : https://cydia.akemi.ai/. Free.
CallBar XS (iOS 12/13) : Callbar re-design the incoming calls view and allow you to use your device while it’s ringing or while in a call . Answer , decline or dismiss a call with ease without stopping what you’re doing. Repo : https://limneos.net/repo/. Paid : 3.99$
TetherMe for iOS8+ : Enables the native tethering for your device and give you the option to share data from data from a VPN or to share a WiF connection to Usb. Also allow you to edit APN settings. Repo : http://repo.tetherme.net/. Paid : 4.99$
CocoaTop : show CPU , memory usage...etc for processes&apps and allow to terminate/kill processes &apps. GitHub : https://d0m0.github.io. Repo : Bigboss. Free
RoadRunner : RoadRunner excludes the current now playing app from being killed when SpringBoard restarts. There's an option to exclude all running apps with the ability to whitelist/blacklist certain apps. Repo : https://henrikssonbrothers.com/cydia/repo/. Paid : 2.25$
Keyboard Accio : This tweak makes the "global" key always switch between the first and second input modes of your keyboard settings. Repo : BigBoss. Free.
ImLyingDownDamnit : A tweak to correct auto-rotate, so you can rotate your device freely, while lying down, relative to your face! Auto-detect typical lying down behaviour to avoid prompting you. "Rollover" prompts, to correct the orientation if you change direction in bed! and more features! Repo : https://repo.dynastic.co/. Paid : 1.49$
System Info : Show extra device and battery information and save blobs from settings. Repo : https://apt.xninja.xyz/. Free.
Zenumbra : Show number of installed packages per repo for Zebra. Repo : https://foxfort.yourepo.com. Free.
Note : Order of list doesn’t mean anything and I added more in the comment section as post reached it’s maximum words capacity . Again, tweaks in my comment below are as important as in the main post.
The list continues here https://reddit.com/jailbreak/comments/injcwv/_/g47xjw2/?context=1
& here https://reddit.com/jailbreak/comments/injcwv/_/g75vsw9/?.context=1
Any new tweaks that is not in the list and you think it’s important , please let me know, I’ll take a look. Thanks.

Have 1G internet getting 600+ mb from modem to computer over ethernet. Looking for a reliable replacement router and access points as this one is 3 years old and suffering frequent failures and requires frequent restart through Netgear Genie or Hard restarts. Often devices show network available without internet, internet is still functioning through hardwired desktop. Budget is $2-300.
Any tips or help would be appreciated.
Have replaced all CAT5/6 Cables and COAX, as well as COAX from pole to house (had squirrels chew through lines).
Have 2500 sqft house with plaster walls.
Working from home have frequent outages on Wifi only..
Devices on network. Gaming Desktop (only really play fortnite and hardwired) Work HP laptop (doesn't have many issues. Wife's iMac (most frequent issue connecting) and macbook. 2 iPads and 2 iphones. Mirror (workout device) Nintendo Switch.
Firmware is V1.0.11.110_10.2.100

Greetings!
Been a long time PC-user and a month or so ago I got my first Mac... a M1 MBP with 16GB memory and a 500 GB drive. I LOVE IT. Wish I had made the switch sooner.
I used to game a bit, but haven’t really for years with the exception of BG 1 and 2 on my iPad and an occasional attempt to play something here and there on my old laptop. That said, I’ve been anticipating Baldurs Gate 3 for years. I was playing the Early Access release on my gimpy 2012 Windows laptop via Stadia and it was a pretty good experience. I’ve been enjoying the game on my MacBook via Stadia as well.
That said, it is a bit visually stuttery at times (a Stadia thing) and I would like to buy the game for direct play on my MacBook. I like the idea of being able to play without being connected to the internet. It also seems the game will be optimized for the M1 eventually, so I’m curious about that and imagine it will give the best experience and would like to support the effort.
It appears there are two places to get the game - Steam and Gog. Not having been a gamer in some time I’m not really familiar with these platforms for content delivery. Is one more recommended than the other? Are there any big functional differences? Any opinions here?
Thanks, all!

Hughesnet as I knew they would has throttled my internet down to 0.4mbps (often lower) because their shitty worthless system can't handle this many people at home during the holidays. It was just as bad during Thanksgiving and now I basically won't be able to use the internet for 3 days. How in the hell has this company been able to get away with this shit for over 20 years? It's 2020 and people are FORCED to work and school from home because of COVID and all this company can do is cry that it doesn't have enough bandwidth to serve all the people they steal money from every month. The only reason why they still exist is because rural areas have NOTHING else.
A lot of people who have the option are forced to spoof (and sometimes hack) a LTE internet connection just because the cellular company's often refused to take peoples money for unlimited 4G. Recently those same company's were FORCED themselves into offering home internet services only after they realized that they won't be able to rip people off anymore with LTE jet-packs and refuse to keep playing the cat and mouse game with the IPad exploit and sketchy third party company's. I'm sure they are watching Starlink, making sure they can stay as competitive as they can while spending the least amount of money and doing the least amount of work possible. Starlink is like an assassin in my eyes. All the bullshit that Hughesnet, Viasat, any WISP, the cellular company's ETC pull on people just because a greedy fiber provider wont run a line down you're road because you are "second class" to them will be a distant memory.
I CANNOT wait until Starlink assassinates (keeping the metaphor going) the Geo-sat providers into bankruptcy. It looks like right now they aren't worried because they have never in their entire existence had to worry about something like "competition". All they had to do was make caps so low that people can't work within them (60GB, really?) so they could throttle you down to nothing. After that they sell you data tokens at $10 per GB (I can't make this shit up!) so you can buy back your illustrious 25mbps spending THOUSANDS per month trying to get something that resembles even a DSL connection. Hey DSL/Cable users, imagine spending 2-3k a month on a 25mbps line that you can't play online games with and still barely works. Now try 0.5Mbps for the same price you pay...
This is the part that doesn't even make me mad anymore it just makes me depressed and sad. I see some people here on Reddit who have Starlink and also have cable or fiber connections. I don't ask the question "why" anymore, because its become clear to me these people don't care about logic or other people. These people live in city's or large towns and just signed up for the laughs or because they are Elon Musk fans. They think their current ISP is bad when they don't know what "bad" internet is. I've had Comcast and its easily the best connection there is to the masses. You guys honestly complain your 300mbps connection is $100 bucks a month when Hughesnet is $150 for 1/600th the speed. I simply don't get it, why would you steal (yes steal, we have a limited number of antenna) a receiver when you have a perfectly good connection already? The answer is these people have no clue about the limitations of the system and are greedy. Without getting too technical there is a limited number of people who can be on one beam. I have made this example before but here it is again with a story. I made up this story but is realistic to how things happen with some people,
A neighborhood of 100 houses in the Seattle area all decide they have had enough of their ISP being 9/10 as fast as advertised and all sign up for Starlink (I call this the fuck-Comcast neighborhood).
Billy lives in a log cabin 10 miles from the fuck-Comcast neighborhood and has no wire-line internet access and 1 bar of cell signal. Billy has Hughesnet and he has two 10 year old kids who now have to go to their classes online. The kids BOTH have to use their internet at the same time and it simply doesn't work. The teacher tried to get them a hot spot but the signal was too weak and didn't connect to LTE. Billy's wife has no choice but to take their kids to town every day to do their online classes, in the car. One day Billy gets an email that Starlink is FINALLY in his area but needs to check if they have room on the network for Billy. After filling everything out Billy gets a call back 3 days latter telling him the beam in his area is full after they got an unexpected amount of subscribers all at once.
After asking about why, the lady he is talking on the phone with says their is nothing she can do and says to wait. She explains the new customers aren't happy about the "slow" 50mbps speeds during the evenings and their kids can't download games nearly as fast. She says a ton of people are leaving just as fast as they joined and are going back to their old ISP. Billy waits until the network opens back up and 2 months later he finally has Starlink. It may not perform as well as they told him it would but his kids don't have to struggle to go to class anymore so hes ecstatic. He can also play games online again after 10 years of not being able to do so.
This could actually happen, as these stupid people leave to crawl back to Comcast they will probably leave bad reviews of Starlink. That would be very bad. Elon Musk has said himself that the service IS NOT FOR URBAN AREAS, HOW MANY TIMES MUST IT BE SAID!!!!!! You guys love to ignore certain things and praise other things the man has said.
Ok rant over, gimme those down-votes because I'm a "gatekeeper"...

Warning this will be a bit long sorry... My whole world just got flipped upside down today.
So to back up a bit, I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety at 18... I never thought to question it because of trauma as well as family history plus of course at the time I was genuinely suicidal. I've spent 10 yrs essentially taking courses, working with therapists, and being medicated.
But. I. Still. Feel. Overwhelmed. Daily.
I take mental health extremely serious as my great grandmother commited suicide, my mother attempted twice, and when I hit that point I knew I needed to break the cycle and get help... I also work as a Paramedic and because of my background I take special care to know what resources my local has and work hard to give mental health cases just as much attention I would a trauma case. Therefore I take pride in being pretty knowledgable in this subject.
Last night my husband, who has moderate to severe combination ADHD (has his whole life and due to less than ideal parenting we just got it stabilized 2 yrs ago), half jokingly accused me of having it. I asked why, expecting a silly answer...Nope... Apparently he's been observing it for a couple years since he started learning more about his.
To simplify:
I lose my phone, glasses, keys, or really anything daily and usually repeatedly.
I tend to side track extremely easily in conversation as I connect dots that somehow lead to other topics which don't necessarily make sense to to others so I had to back track myself all the time (without realizing it).
I talk... A lot. Which comes with the same habit I call him out on for: accidentally cutting people off... Like I need to say whatever it is.
I'm honestly only good with appointments because from a young age I was taught to use agendas or calendars (now my phone).
I am extremely overwhelmed and stressed no matter what I do. Constantly feel like I'm forgetting something...
I'm constantly fidgeting... I thought I'd had restless legs syndrome cause I physically get a electricity sort of discomfort if I don't move my feet non stop.... Thought I did it in my sleep... I don't. I also have a bad habit of picking at my skin and chewing the inside if my mouth.
I have issues with house chores... I know they need doing and I hate seeing stuff not done but I can't seem to just do it.
I'm notoriously distracted. I sometimes ask people to repeat what they said cause I genuinely didn't hear them ( I daze a lot, thinking).
I have always had certain sounds trigger extreme discomfort such as dishes clattering when putting them away for example or anything too repetitive. He notices cause I react every time.
And more.
Naturally, being a medic I immediately did some digging... Our family doc had given us a test questionnaire for my husband in the past for it and I genuinely never looked at it except with my husband. I checked almost every box except I don't physically get "hyper" often... My husband is a busy body. I do always feel like I should be doing something but I grew up in a less than healthy upbringing myself so I always found escape in video games and books... Mental escapes instead of physical. I read extremely fast and can lazer focus but forget food is a thing.... If it interests me. Same with games... On days off I could easily spend 8hrs playing as I love things with thick plots to keep me engaged.
I could go on for hours about the rabbit hole of "oh my god that explains this, and this, and this" thinking to my procrastination and various issues in school years. I was smart though and shy so no one ever so much as thought of it... I genuinely didn't know much about it at all prior to my husband so I just thought I was miserable for no reason growing up and learned to mask it. I wasn't allowed emotions growing up... So I bottled and kept my issues to myself.
Obviously this lead to both good and bad natural coping strategies as I've gone and done things people assume ADHD would prevent a person doing... I also have a bordering photographic memory so that made studying easier and quicker.
Now my husband takes Adderall 20mg daily and is going to be upped soon as it hasn't been doing as much but I've never touched any of those types of drugs. I always joked I should use one to study for my Paramedic exams back then but always assumed it'd make me overly focused and ya know, react to the fact it's a stimulant.
I DO NOT advocate this but I know my drug interactions and even I felt a bit wrong doing this.... But he challenged me to try one this morning. 20mg isn't a high dose so I figured worst case I go crazy cleaning or something. I'm again not condoning or proud of it but years ago I did try coke a few times (literally 3x and months apart) so I figured if that never made me go berserk I'd be fine.
As expected around 30 mins passed before I noticed anything... I felt a touch more awake ( like a good cup of coffee) and my mind was...calm. I spoke without getting tongue tied so often, I didn't notice background noise (it felt like the world was still normal but less noisy if that makes sense), he noticed I didn't side track I stayed on topic and attentive. I genuinely hadn't noticed before that I had always been thinking of my next words faster than I could say them and would speak quickly and still stumble like I was out of synch... It calmed too. I did feel a bit sort of slower but nothing dramatic and really all of these things were definitely far less dramatic than it felt to me... But it completely shattered my whole world.
I'm not an expressive person due to my upbringing... This made me cry. I felt better than I've felt... Ever. I was still tired from being up late the night before but I was not dead tired. I didn't feel overwhelmed just looking at chores... Things in front of me I was just able to do. Nothing elaborate, just tidied a couple things I'd normally not do right away. It felt like this massive weight had been lifted and a fog had cleared.
I also cried because I had been going to therapy with my husband as well where he had some anger management issues (nothing dangerous) and we had been having issues we've worked through as we butted heads not understanding one another's seperate issues. It's been great and worked well as we try to support one another .... But one of my issues was trying to understand his ADHD and not let it frustrate me so much. He does things more erratically than I do and it used to bug the shit outta me... I ended up apologizing more times than I could count.
I managed to fly under the radar for 27 years and even miss it myself. I felt so bad. I remember those kids being "accommodated" with those bullshit cardboard blocker things, treated differently by teachers and students, and watching one classmate be zombified by Ritalin at a young age. My husband had awful experiences with this growing up and I felt genuinely bad because while I was that kid who was shy with "normal" kids I always made a point to share and play with or eventually befriend those ignored by others... But little did I know that we had so much more in common than I'd thought.
I constantly was that kid who talked in class, usually did my classwork quick so I could do what I wanted (read or write) and if not I daydreamed all the time or would find something to reorganize in my backpack. I also tended to blurt answers from time to time but only in my stronger subjects.... As an adult student we used iPads for everything... I found myself distracted more by what my classmates were doing, I'd be internet surfing, or sorting out things I needed to do like bills or even just plain texting my husband. I'd read the PowerPoint ahead, pay attention for the parts that were harder, asked a ton of questions to make sure I got it, then back to distraction land. I really always thought I was "just not a desk person" so I get bored easy. (which is why I'm ex army due to injury and a paramedic now... Variety).
The amount of excuses and coverups Im unpacking right now are mind melting.
I'm beyond grateful for my husband, he's been nothing but helpful, supportive, and encouraging. I incidentally had just been put on stress leave for mental health due to feeling crushingly overwhelmed. My plan was more therapy and to try and figure out why I'm still getting worse with time off and on.... Now next week I'm going to my doc to talk about reducing my Zoloft and adding a starter dose of Adderall if he can confirm my extreme likelihood of ADHD. Thankfully I trust my doc and he respects that I'm not the dr. Google type but I read DSM diagnosis criteria, psychology papers, etc to do my own research... A skill we're taught as paramedics... So he trusts I am not going there to self diagnose but I also don't go in uninformed to the best of my ability.
Fingers crossed this is a step towards finally figuring out what the hell has been wrong with me... Maybe I can be happy or at least "feel normal" finally. I can't talk to anyone but my husband as my mother once literally denied my wrist was broken until I had x-rays and a cast to prove it... She inherently denies me ever having even a cold lol No idea why, and I had to take over my own medical appointments and such at 16 for this reason... But I don't feel ready to deal with that even though as an adult we do have a good relationship.
I just feel so overwhelmed and lost as to what to do next and needed somewhere to reach out. I'm both feeling a relief and new stress all at once. I genuinely feel lost for the first time in years as it feels like everything I thought I knew or had answers for was a lie.
If you made it to the end here... I appreciate it. Truly. I can't begin to express just how much the word overwhelmed doesn't feel strong enough. Mix in confusion, guilt, angeupset at how much of my turmoil could have been prevented, and hopeful but drowning... And it might begin to cover it.

Check-in
We may be anonymous strangers on the internet, but we have one thing in common. We may be a world apart, but we're here together!
Welcome to the 24 hour pledge!
I'm pledging myself to not drinking today, and invite you to do the same.
Maybe you're new to stopdrinking and have a hard time deciding what to do next. Maybe you're like me and feel you need a daily commitment or maybe you've been sober for a long time and want to inspire others.
It doesn't matter if you're still hung over from a three day bender or been sober for years, if you just woke up or have already completed a sober day. For the next 24 hours, lets not drink alcohol!
This pledge is a statement of intent. Today we don't set out trying not to drink, we make a conscious decision not to drink. It sounds simple, but all of us know it can be hard and sometimes impossible. The group can support and inspire us, yet only one person can decide if we drink today. Give that person the right mindset!
What happens if we can't keep to our pledge? We give up or try again. And since we're here in stopdrinking, we're not ready to give up.
What this is: A simple thread where we commit to not drinking alcohol for the next 24 hours, posting to show others that they're not alone and making a pledge to ourselves. Anybody can join and participate at any time, you do not have to be a regular at stopdrinking or have followed the pledges from the beginning.
What this isn't: A good place for a detailed introduction of yourself, directly seek advice or share lengthy stories. You'll get a more personal response in your own thread.
This post goes up at:

• US - Night/Early Morning
• Europe - Morning
• Asia and Australia - Evening/Night

A link to the current Daily Check-In post can always be found near the top of the sidebar
___________________________________________________
Self-Gratification and Life Clutter
Living with addiction can be described as a world of excess and self-gratification. And self-gratification is mindlessly fulfilling your own base desire, which is pretty easy to do when surrounded by alcohol.
I chased a lot of external excitement, lust, and distraction. By externals, I’m generally talking about things like alcohol, drugs, gambling, buying stuff, eating junk food, excess phone use, video games, etc. And one thing these externals are great at is creating more pain and anxiety. These distractions are what I will call, life clutter. Some of it is ok in small doses, but all of these can get out of control in a hurry and suck up all of your time.
I used alcohol to combat my pain and stress, which only added to it. So, I found other things to chase. I ate junk food and destroyed my health. I cluttered my home with stuff and my credit cards with debt. I gambled on sports and elevated my stress. I played video games instead of spending time with my wife and son.
This is where creating habitual behavior to combat Resistance has come in handy for me. If I create habits that work for me, it replaces that distraction with a meaningful practice. I realize I'm beginning to sound like I may have a computer chip inside of me. I still have my time set aside to watch football or movies, but only after my practice.
Succumbing to life clutter is the easy way. Creating thoughtful habits is hard work, but it’s work that brings real joy and fulfillment to our lives. And I really try to use these habits to work different areas of my life.
One of my favorite Tony Robbins’ contributions is the Pyramid of Mastery, which covers the 7 major facets of everyone’s life. From the bottom to the top of the pyramid these are the layers:

1. Physical Body
2. Emotions / Meaning
3. Relationships
4. Time
5. Work / Mission
6. Finances
7. Contribution and Spirituality

This appears as an order, but we work through all facets simultaneously. Think of it as a stool with individual legs we are working to strengthen and balance. If your focus is limited to a couple legs of the stool, it will be wobbly and topple over. All the legs should be as strong as they can be.
Alcohol was a destructive force to each of these legs like termites working their way through the wood framing on a house. I enjoyed all of my clutter too much. And it wasn’t until I quit drinking that I could see the destruction done to each leg of the stool.
Building new habits is what created a practice to strengthen each of these legs.
Physical Body: Drinking was a major trigger point of a poor diet for me. I had high blood pressure, I was overweight, and I was never consistent with exercise. Once I quit drinking, I started eating healthier. I lost weight and was able to get my blood pressure under control. My fitness level improved with gradual change in my routine. It’s not all perfect, but my energy has improved drastically, which helps me in all other facets.
Emotions / Meaning: Negative emotions were a force permeating through my life when I drank. Fear, anxiety, and anger were emotions made worse through alcohol. My anger was ubiquitous and expected. My fear and anxiety were only hidden with alcohol and subsequently increased when hungover. I still experience all of these emotions, but in a way that I can face and manage now. I face my fear with courage. Anger is a work-in-progress, but I’ve come a long way. I give thanks for what I have. This has given me more joy in life than I ever experienced with alcohol. It has helped me to find meaning over chasing some high.
Relationships: Alcohol was an excuse to choose drinking buddies over my wife and son. I spent a lot of time at the bar and really not with people I care about all that much. Before I quit drinking, I always imbibed before seeing anyone outside of the house. Now we are spending quality time together and with our families. Not time filled with booze or thinking about where my next drink will be.
Work / Mission: My work has been one of the primary drivers of why I drank so heavily. It supported my anger. And it led me to drink daily to get my mind off the job. I even tried sports gambling to replace my income. Hint: it wasn’t the answer (as if you were guessing the other way). This pandemic has taught me some valuable things. One of them is being more conscious with how I spend my time. Especially on what is fulfilling to me. I still have to make money, but I can do a lot better than chase money 50 hours a week in a job that negatively impacts my mood.
Finances: I was consumed with buying needless crap during my drinking life. We filled our house with junk that would get donated or thrown away. Because I did well in my job, I thought I could afford to spend money carelessly. And maybe I could, but at what cost? All of the movies that were purchased, the Apple Watch that serves little purpose other than recording workouts, the iPad that doesn’t get used. None of these things bring me joy. As nerdy as this sounds, I have more fun seeing how many days I can go without spending a dime. Books will always hold a special place in my heart. But beyond the essentials, I don’t need many other physical items to enjoy life.
Spirituality: Whether you are religious or not, all of us are spiritual creatures. For some this is a relationship with God or other higher power. For some this is a connection with nature. For others it’s a mediation practice or your philosophical principles. Spirituality is how you find meaning and purpose in your inner life and connection to others. All of us can define what this means to us individually. For me, a relationship with God is like the foundation of my house. When booze was at the center of my life, I never spent time in prayer. Today, it’s an important daily practice and one that I can’t skip. Whatever your spiritual practice may be, the externals of the physical world will never bring us the happiness or joy we desire. And none of what we accumulate in the physical world can be taken with us when we die.
Time: I left time for last because it permeates throughout every facet of our lives. We have to choose how to spend our time in the right way and on the right things. If we don’t choose, we settle for what is easiest. It is far easier to sit around debasing ourselves in lustful thought because we are bored and uncommitted to doing something better for us. I have to consciously decide to spend my time in a more purposeful way.
I get it, all of this sounds unsexy compared to playing video games or buying stuff on Amazon. But this is more about a commitment to the process. These externals are nothing more than dopamine hits and even that happens more in the anticipation of than the actual activity.
The practice and process is about delaying gratification. In the long-run, I know my writing practice will bring far more happiness than buying one of these new video game systems and devoting unnecessary time to playing every day. This isn’t to say you shouldn’t or I shouldn’t buy the system. It’s more about being conscious of how that time spent affects what you could be doing. If it affects my ability to put in my daily writing practice and daily weight training practice and the time it takes to prepare healthy food, then I am sacrificing something far more important for a virtual figure on a screen.
Delayed gratification is a muscle that must be exercised. Otherwise we will find ourselves on the couch eating a bag of Doritos every day. No one else? Ok, don’t mind me.
As long as I am focused on my daily practice, I keep self-gratification at bay. I don’t use my money on junk. And I don't procrastinate away large chunks of my time.
Today, think about the areas of your Pyramid of Mastery and in what way you can strengthen each leg.
Not drinking with you today in San Antonio.

For context, I live away from my parents; moved out at 19 for college. I dont get to visit them a lot (around 2-3 times a year) but i try as much as i can. So currently at my parents place and my brother has grown up in a way that kind of makes me sad.
We used to be very close despite of the age gap. I used to babysit him all the time and he was one lovely kid, very creative, loves to write stuff. Now he has grown quite distant, spends most of his time just on YouTube and the internet and playing games. Has been swearing a lot while playing games ( i take that as my parents haven't noticed it yet ). Very short tempered. I talked to my mom about all this and she says that I turned out fine and this is just a phase and me being his brother should take care of his behaviour right now.
The fact is I didn't have much internet growing up and read books/played with friends instead. I've seen my parents work their way up to where they are rn and can basically afford a lot of things and my brother has been totally spoiled. He has all he needs and wants, smartphone, pc, you name it.
Both my parents work full time so my brother is most of the time by himself. Before me moving out i looked after him, them mom quit her job for a while to take care of him and now due to covid mom has started working again since he can be fine without anyone watching him all the time.
The main issue is the unrestricted internet access that he has. My parents are of the "do good in school and everything else doesn't matter" type and they haven't even set up any sort of parental restriction. I recently found out about this and talked to my parents and they don't seem to care much as long as he is doing good in school, which he is.
My parents just got him an Ipad recently and this morning i was just going through it, I found out some writings of his which includes a lot of "fuck you"s "bitch"s and a lot of things i don't really appreciate and want someone of his age write. I asked him about what i saw and he just rolled his eye and left. I don't even know if my parents know about this also or they just dont care. I don't know how they'd react if I tell them about this.
I am really worried and concerned about it and don't really know how to approach this and connect with him. As online classes are going on I have some good few months to try and fix this situation. Need some solid advise on how to talk to him please. thanks.
tl;dr - my brother has been spoilt beyond anything and parents don't seem to care.

Ranking in Idolmaster: Cinderella Girls Starlight Stage is not exactly an easy thing. Since the primary method of point gain for any event is to ‘play the game’, usually the solution is to ‘play the game’ more than everyone else to get the highest rank possible. This obviously isn’t always the case, as Parade has no ranking element beyond SSS rank and Carnival is just a glorified high score ranking. To break it down:

• Parade (SSS): Play the game a lot and play the game really well,
• Groove: Play the game a lot and then after half time also play well,
• Token: Play the game a lot.

…The above is all information directly lifted from a post I made nearly a year ago, where I played M@GIC Forte 2258 times in 174 hours to celebrate it being added to the game, and accidently became a Mayu/HinakoP in the process. At the time I only offered the info I had on Token, and not having officially participated in a high-end groove run felt that it would be presumptuous for me to present my expectations for one. Fast forward nearly an entire year, and I now have a perhaps unfortunate level of experience from ranking the most recent Groove, Never Ends. That said, the strategies I utilised did not resemble what is the expected style of play, so I will do my best to provide all the facts I know about Groove here.
 

Groove Ranking Primer

Groove has existed since the debut of Tulip in Starlight Stage (January 2016?), experiencing several evolutions both major and minor since its original conception. It began life taking a random selection of three (non-collab) songs from one of the three types (rainbow included as a wildcard in all three) and slapping a fourth encore song on the end that required reaching a particular point threshold (called applause) during the first three songs to actually play it. Completing the first three songs would award you points for how high you managed to make the applause go, and completing the encore would award a fixed number of points based on your score rank.
Worth noting that the fourth song is the new one people actually wanted to play the event for, thus forcing them to go through filler to reach it. A popular interpretation of the event said by men wiser than I is that Groove is taking the bus through the bad neighbourhood, having to make three shady stops before finally reaching your destination. From a purely casual perspective it at least exposes the player base to more songs they may not have had the time to explore, challenging them to diversify, and offers the chance to run into cool combinations of songs. However, it often causes problems for people trying to achieve full combos or high score runs on the event song, being forced to play three other songs before it every time they fail, which is very detrimental to those who cannot calm their nerves and extremely detrimental to those just want to play the damn song already.
Anyway, the basic mechanics have changed three times since the beginning;

• February 2018, 2x points option added for grooves beyond the half way point,
• Also, February 2018, applause cap raised from 50 to 100,
• November 2018, Live Party can now earn points for live groove.

The 2x points option being added was particularly innocuous, and in fact changed an old strategy where playing the groove and instantly leaving the encore would be more point efficient. The applause cap being raised is likely in response to continued power creep in cards added since the beginning of the game, making it easier and easier to reach 50. The difference in points received for 50 applause versus 100 on a master groove is only a mere 25 points (480 vs 505).
The real devastating calamity here is when Live Party was added as an option for Groove point gain. This would have been a neat feature to be able to casually rank Groove with your friends if it worked as everyone expected, but for some reason the points gain per minute with Live Party is significantly higher than playing Groove, at least during 1x. This change completely modified the way the first half of the event was played when ranking competitively, going from a solo endurance game into a team-based speedtest.net simulator.
 
The basic mechanics when translated into functional requirements for ranking would be as follows:

• Ensure that you spend all 198 hours (may differ) on playing the game,
• Have the fastest possible device to reduce load times,
• Have the lowest ping for connecting to the server to reduce load times,
• Do not disconnect or die in as many songs as possible in Live Party,
• Have 4 other accounts do the same as the above,
• Get the highest Applause possible in every Groove.

Groove is a wretched amalgamation of two different events in one, meaning you should be twice as prepared (or maybe 5x as prepared) to run it than if you were to run something like Token. Having a multiplayer segment means you need several other people to be as prepared as you as well, where those people also need to abide by some of the rules above (fast device, low ping, try not to disconnect). After that, you must jump into one of the most skill demanding score attacks in the game, where combo is the primary aspect that will determine your applause.
Tie the above with the requirement to have your M1 Mac Mini emulating Starlight Stage, living next to the game server in Japan using a hardline to avoid disconnects, be able to invite 4 of your buddies around to also receive the ping benefits and speed benefits, and somehow remain sane enough to press the Play Groove button after hour 190 and not think the entire game has changed into a limbo designed purely to torture you. You start to see why planning to play Groove in at least a slightly effective manner is not simple.
That said, for every insane person out there willing to take on this challenge, there will always be others attempting the exact same thing. Chances are they’re facing the exact same problems, and have likely already reached out on Twitter to find others willing to suffer with them for the first half. While it’s not possible to fill all of the above requirements with maximum efficiency, there’s usually enough instability in the event runtime to allow for mistakes to be made and still come out on top. Usually.
 

Event Preperation

My own preparation for the event saw the completion of, maybe, three and a half of the requirements above? Like I said, there’s a lot of instability surrounding this event, and getting close enough to achieving all of the above was enough to give a chance at a high rank regardless. The rank you end up with is likely dependent on how many other teams of other players were able to be formed for the first half of the event, with very little people choosing to forego Live Party in favour of just playing perfect applause grooves for the entire event, unless you’re a robot. Sorry to all robots out there, but this probably counts as cheating.
I still live in Australia, and must suffer the internet curse I am bound to with horrible stability and slow speeds. Even if I was capable of moving to Japan for a week and playing the game there, there’s the tiny problem of a global pandemic preventing anything like that from being a good idea. Not that it would be a good idea anyway. I would also expect to not play all 198 hours of the event, but more on this later.
I already had an A13 processer in the form of an iPhone 11 I picked up before last year’s December Token that was still in mostly functional condition. Since then, the A14 had been released in the iPhone 12, which would be another accessible upgrade to brainlet simpletons like myself, but it was becoming more and more evident that the increases from device speed were negligible compared to the losses suffered from making mistakes or just from ping. Alternate properties to focus on when selecting the device become apparent, such as the weight when carrying it around for 100+ hours, or the temperature to not feel like your lap is going to get burned from someone spamming the Twitch chat. Worth noting again, the speed of your device will be throttled by the slowest device in your Live Party room during the first half of the event anyway, so if you’re stuck with your pal on his Samsung S5 then you may want to consider buying them a device rather than yourself.
Another addition is to get a secondary device for yourself. This can be used to complete business while still playing the game on the first device; just being careful not to log on in the wrong order and delete your entire play.
Then comes the resource preparation for the two separate parts of the event: The Live Party segment (1st half) and the Groove segment (2nd half). Saying half is a little misleading as the Groove segment is usually always shorter than the Live Party segment, but both feel like they take a lifetime to complete anyway so that’s kind of meaningless.
 
Groove Segment (2nd half)
The Groove part is all about achieving the most applause possible with the least effort. Most of this is controlled by player skill and team composition, but is also assisted by the appeal bonus from the support team. Groove support teams work like normal ones where you get a 50% appeal bonus from the 10 highest appeal counts you have for that type of song (or groove in this case), but with the additional bonus of the Groove type being applied to the cards first. So in the case of a Vocal Groove, the cards with the highest appeal will likely end up being your vocal cards, who receive an incredible 150% bonus to that stat. If you’ve taken a look at your inventory and noticed that one weird card you’ve got with 10,000+ vocal appeal, you should think to yourself: What if I had 11 of these? And one in every colour? Or maybe, you don’t think that, since not everyone has the wallet to make that happen. Nor the stupidity. Or maybe you did have the resources to make it happen, but you spent it all on your Chieri4 instead and it’s a Vocal Groove. You can’t always win.
This is about the only way to increase applause in a passive way. The rest comes down to things that you have to control more actively, as depressing as that is.
The teams you use are going to depend on the circumstances you find yourself in after you have already been playing for hundreds of hours. The objective is to reach 99 applause on every single groove, but this is not going to be a reality, especially after all that time battling with Live Party. In the grand scheme of things, I narrowed down three team compositions that had any relevant difference: High Scoring, Ultimate Defence, and one that sits in the middle of this scale. You can see these teams below:
 

• High Scoring. Syoko5, Shiki4, Asuka4, Yukari2, Nono4.

This team uses Resonance to take full advantage of the stat bonus for the groove and combines several skills with high percentage bonuses for very high scoring per note. The amount of defence on the team is limited to only healing from synergy and nothing else. Worth noting that I had to roll for Syoko5 during the Live Party segment of the event, which was a dramatic endeavour.

• Halfway. Uzuki1, Minami4, Chinami1, Nao3, Rika2.

Offers 3 layers of protection and a plethora of scoring coverage. The combination of Uzuki1 and Minami4 effectively covers 50% of the song for you, while Chinami1 with Tuning and Rika2 with Overload give a near 100% percent resistance to anything other than misses. This offers nearly as much protection as a regular auto team, but scores far, far better. Chinami1 as centre instead of a usual Skill Boost adds 30% extra appeal to the team and gives a better scoring skill, while opening up another slot to use Symphony instead for the far better boost. The only significant difference between this team and the below one is the inclusion of Helen1, which changes the functionality greatly enough to make them worthwhile as two different teams.

• Ultimate Defence. Uzuki1, Rika4, Chinami1, Nao3, HELEN1.

A variant of the above team that allows full auto during the encore song. This team setup worked in principle but when optimising it for vocal attribute, cracks started to show. The centre effect only existed on Cool cards, Helen is the only Damage Guard of her class who is also Cool, Nao3 and Minami3 (both Cool) are the vocal equivalents that sync on 9 seconds with Uzuki1. There was no efficient way to fit a Passion in here without sacrificing either functionality or appeal. I decided to swap Minami4 for Rika4 in the end. Again, having a secondary device to complete business during the groove section can be done while autoing the encore with this team for no loss of appeal (and very little loss of time). This is probably one of the best scoring options to take while still being able to auto, and whether or not this had been figured out by other players was a mystery, but I like to think very little of myself so I assumed I was not alone.
 
Understanding the line-up in these teams requires understanding the minimum required of the player to achieve 99 applause. The most effective method is to keep one’s combo high for the majority of the Groove, trying to only break combo towards the beginning of the first song or the end of the last song to benefit the most from the ridiculously high multipliers offered around 1000 combo. The other effective method is simply having absolutely insane scoring potential per note, where any combo saving pieces are removed in favour that you’ll hopefully just gorilla your way through most of the song and end up with a bunch of applause anyway. The High Scoring and Halfway teams above try to fill those two ends of the scale.
A defensive team ideally can score 99 applause while also giving the player additional benefits, such as the ability to auto the encore song where applause no longer matters. This usually required running one of the many Damage Guard SRs that have a high uptime but low activation chance alongside one of the many cards with a centre effect that raises the chance of skill activation. Since the colour of the groove is random, you cannot plan in advance to use the type of damage guard that corresponds with the groove and get the free on-type chance activation bonus of 30%. It’s also not advisable to change teams too often, as this obviously wastes precious time. Note that while using a Skill Boost in the centre slot would be the expected solution, the existence of the Cross Type cool cards give a 35% bonus to skill activation which when combined with cards like HELEN we can create teams with 100% skill activation chance and still receive additional benefits such as more appeal bonus and a better active skill, since Skill Boost is massively outclassed by Symphony in this day and age.
Beyond that, the only plan for groove is to pray you aren’t too brain dead to play.
 
Live Party Segment (1st half)
I kinda dodged talking about planning for Live Party and talked about Groove related preparations first instead. The reason for this is that I while I did indeed achieve the requirement of having a setup that allowed as little disconnects and deaths as possible, and I did indeed have a full Live Party room with 5 accounts capable of doing the same, I was missing one crucial aspect that I did not explicitly mention. I did not have 4 other people to play the game with me.
I didn’t mention it since it’s technically not required.
 

How not to play Live Party

Cheating is hard to define. I’m not starting out with a vague statement like that to imply I may have cheated, since in reality all I did was solve a problem with a much more convoluted solution due to my extreme lack of trust in other people and myself. I did not realistically expect to get 4 other people to assist me to play a video game for ~100 hours straight, and instead of investing time into making friendships where someone would offer to help me in that situation, I instead spent it all on planning a solution that would give me full control of my fate at the cost of sanity.
I present the Rank 6 Shift Project.
Lovingly named after a certain level 6 shift project which also involved having countless clones die for the sake of one achieving great power, the basic setup was to prepare 4 other accounts that had access to the correct cards with the right potentials to form an auto team in Live Party, and do so on relatively fast devices in a setup accessible by one person with knowledge that they would still need to live as a human during the hours of operation.
What you can see in this image of it in action is 4 iPad Minis, 5th Generation assembled within a large tray with enough room for charge cables to be inserted or removed as necessary. These devices were chosen as they have a relatively fast processer (A12), have a large screen size for ease in pushing buttons, and are ‘cheap’ to afford ($600 AUD). Having all the devices have an identical aspect ratio was important to avoid confusion around the location of on-screen buttons, and to avoid speed throttling by having even one device with a slower processer. Having a high battery life was also desirable as being forced to keep this thing plugged in for too long was not ideal either.
As you’ve probably already figured, yes, this was not a smart idea and I cannot defend my decision. I will continue to explain it however.
 
Live Party Mechanics
The actual mechanics behind how this abomination replaces other players is more than just surface deep. In a regular Live Party room, you would have to complete the following steps to make it through one whole cycle, which would repeat thousands of times:

1. One player hosts the Live Party room.
2. Four other players connect via code, friend list or public lobby.
3. Each player that is not the host hits the Ready button, chooses whether or not to play with stamina, and accepts.
4. The host starts the Live.
5. A random song is selected and all five players are given a fifteen second countdown that can be skipped by all pressing ready again.
6. The song is loaded, played and the results are determined and shown in a secondary screen were players are again given a fifteen second countdown that can be skipped by all pressing ready again.
7. All players continue through the various results screens before being either returned to the lobby, or kicked back to the Live Party main menu due to disconnecting.
8. Repeat from step 3.

This is modified to be the following when controlling 5 accounts:

1. …
2. The four players who are not the hosts forcibly quit and reopen the game, cancelling the rejoin option when prompted.
3. They then manually rejoin the room as in step 2, while the host completes the live and skips through the results screens.
4. Repeat from step 3.

If one player is in control of all 5 players, there is several issues that need solving to not only ensure you can get through a loop, but can do so at a competitive speed. Having all devices be the same ensures that as little mistakes are made as possible when it comes to pushing on-screen buttons such as the Ready Up and Continue buttons. Where possible it is best to avoid having to press buttons all together, or to only do so when time permits. Ideally, you’d play without the use of stamina so the extra players never have to refill, but taking the extra time to check the tickbox is a significant loss of time in the thousands of live party games you’ll have to play. Not to mention that stamina can be refilled in slow time while reconnecting to the room and waiting for the host to finish the live. Since those accounts are already ready and waiting, it is easy for the host to spam through the results screen where the other players are listed as disconnected, and be returned to the lobby again. This also means that the speed of the other devices only throttles the start of the song loading times, and will have no effect on anything at the end of the song.
All devices would be operating on the same network, so it would suffer the same weakness as any other room should connection break, as failure to connect on even one account would break the flow of the room. Having the host device have access to a roaming mobile network as backup allowed me to avoid any connection hiccups which are a severe threat when playing, as connection errors during Live Party are not well understood and can lead to numerous errors such as being stuck in the Live Results screen unable to continue or randomly closing the room and not giving you any points for the play. Another common issue would be if the host starts the live before all accounts are ready, leaving one out and adding in a random from the online queue instead who probably breaks the team comp with his Nanami N card used for fan grinding. This is largely avoided with this setup since all 4 accounts are typically readied in the same hand motion before moving to the main account to start the live. It’s technically an advantage, and I will take any advantage I can get with this disastrous set up.
 
Live Party Autoplay
During the actual song playtime, if a player achieves 30% of notes as misses, the game automatically disconnects you and you receive a 20% penalty to event points. If this happens to the host, the room crashes and needs to be remade. If you die, you aren’t disconnected but you suffer a 50% penalty to event points. Playing on Master+ is required for the highest event point gain, and Passion has the overall fastest songs. Since Live Party teams still operate similar to a regular team (just without a guest) they are also capable of functioning as an auto team. The major difference is that centre effects no longer apply to every character, and instead apply individually to each character regardless of whether they are in the centre or not. This means that Damage Guards that previously would not achieve 100% activation chance could do so if they had a centre affect that gives an increase to activation chance. Cards with 60% chance to activate their affects could already achieve 100% through the on-type bonus of 30% and also the flat bonus from skill potential. Also, notably, score has no affect on the event point gain in Live Party, so you can get a C score and still walk away with maximum efficiency.
With all this in mind, the auto team I replicated on 5 accounts looked like this. Both Passion Perfect Locks are used which offers a 12s/15s setup. A full analysis of all songs reveals that 12s/15s is nearly as robust as the much more popular 9s/12s, with the weakness being that it is safer to play for the first 12 seconds (until first Perfect Lock activation) rather than only the first 9. Since scoring is not an issue, 2 Damage Guards are taken to absolutely ensure death is avoided. Skill Boosts were best for their high uptime, and would still achieve 100% activation regardless of type/colour since their own centre effect still applied to them despite not having a tri-colour team. The timer on the Skill Boost was not relevant, as long as it’s not 7. Ew.
So that’s how it would be. While this is still autoplay, it is potentially more thought-demanding than playing the game normally would be, since all 5 accounts need to be constantly managed to ensure no error is made when re-joining, that they all still have plenty of stamina, that they are not about to run out of battery, and that they are all accessible once the live is complete. This resulted in less than 1.5 minutes of actual auto-time where I did not have to do anything, and 1 minute every loop devoted to hitting ready, starting the live, closing the game, reopening, and re-joining, and playing the first few seconds of the song on my main account at the same time.
I again must repeat, this is not an ideal solution. Having 4 other players back you up and do these tasks for you as was intended is the only strategy I would recommend after trying this, and at least makes you feel like less of a degenerate since you didn’t have to create 4 imaginary friends.
 

Event Run

I already knew that I would be at a disadvantage due to using the Rank 6 Shift Project as a substitute for actual players, both in speed and in mental capability. Staying awake for a long time is incredibly hard even when just autoing a token event. If you’re trying to do the same while needing to keep the mental aptitude to manage 5 accounts at once, you have a much, much more difficult situation facing you. I was under the impression that the ‘measurement’ of remaining focused over long periods of time in sleep studies was known as Vigilance, but I don’t know if it’s fair to put this in the same category. This isn’t something you’ll have people doing research on in any official laboratory anyway, unless it’s happening in some secret underground Starlight Stage lab as we speak. The same place where they developed Haruna2.
What I’m trying to say is that while I would appreciate someone calling the application of this strategy impressive, the reality is that it’s incredibly stupid.
Knowing this disadvantage, I had to plan for as little sleep as possible but still enough to make it through the Live Party section while maintaining sanity. Thanks to the assistance of Zhu, the best in the business when it comes to supporting terrible decisions by rankers, we had prepared a 7-hour-max sleep cycle that would use three sets of sleep; 2 hours, 3 hours, and 2 hours as the expected breakdown. These sleep times would be spread to get maximum advantage of feeling refreshed and to attempt to avoid the usual problems when staying awake for very long periods, such as microsleep choking and total mental shutdown.
Sometime within the first few days the game server went down for about 30 minutes, which I used to get some sleep which overall felt kind of useless and only made my head cloudier, so thanks for nothing Bamco/Cygames. Other than that, I had two hours sleep half way through the Live Party segment, and 3 hours of sleep before the beginning of the 2x Groove segment, with a potential 2 hours of sleep to use during that groove segment if required.
Usual strategies such as quick 2-minute naps in between auto plays were less and less effective due to the immediate mental requirements of setting up the devices after waking and would often lead to making mistakes or just falling back asleep immediately.
My Brother came to stay with me for a few nights to help me out, since he’s a great guy. I feel bad since I made the implication (and truly thought) that I could do other stuff while playing, but this quickly turned out to be impossible. Fortunately, he managed to find plenty of ways to entertain himself, so I really hope he didn’t waste too much of his time here.
The painful reality sets in day by day, where you notice just how boring ranking Groove is. When your hands, brain, and eyes need to be near constantly occupied by the game, there’s really not much you can do outside of continuously managing your game state. I don’t particularly have much to add to the Event Run section because of this; I can’t remember much of what I did since I didn’t really do anything. Just play the game. And often not play the game, due to completely forgetting how to do so on two separate occasions.
 

Results

I often try to keep my personal opinions away from posts like these, beyond inserting the occasional joke that requires a PhD in the history of #cg_general to understand. It is an achievement post technically, but just like my last one about token events I found myself talking mainly about the hard facts of Groove and the strategies that can be used to combat it, not very much about the actual ranking experience from my perspective. I think an entire essay could be written on the psychology surrounding the desire for any human to willingly stay awake for 200+ hours straight, which would be best left completely separate to strategy discussion like this.
But this is a results section, and I haven’t even talked about what result I got, nor why I even chose to rank this event in the first place. I don’t know, it’s got a Cinderella Clock in the background, I guess? I like clocks? Karen and Fumika are pretty great? So are the rest of the singers?
Maybe I just wanted to test the Rank 6 Shift Project to see if it actually had any competitive viability. The conclusion I’ve come to is technically yes, if you’re not in the weak ~99.9999% of the population who can’t seem to stay mentally sane after hour 150, like me. Did I even have a choice? It’s not a muscle I can exercise, or a technique that can be mastered. Every time you want to ‘practice’ you potentially do more damage to yourself and don’t improve at all. You either can, or you can’t. Or you can cheat, I guess. I once again made countless mistakes during the event, many of which are my own fault and are somewhat expected to happen over the course of the event, but the major ones are all tied into the approach I decided to take to even be able to compete in the first place. I didn't even get rank 6, so the name of the technique is a big lie.
Despite everything I just said, I paradoxically still had a lot of fun. I don’t think anyone helping me had fun, I don’t know if any of the runners around me did, but I sure have some interesting memories from the experience. While I didn’t have much community support during the run since I did it in secret, I’d like to thank a few people who have given me information or support in the past (either directly or indirectly) and who have generally been great people to know of:

• Zhu, and the gods in his stream chat,
• Rayvur, for giving me a goal to sink to,
• Lolicore, for being aware that I exist,
• Rafe, for still managing to provide useful information despite not playing the game anymore,
• Dwr3k, and the others in VC (looking at you morstain) for doing god’s work and hosting a CG anime rewatch.

 

Fun Stats

• I earned 16.8 million fans over the event, raising me from a total of 764,079,984 to 781,869,928. This is nearly identical to the 16.5 million fans I earned during my token run last December.
  • My breakdown of fans across Cute, Cool and Passion has evened up a little where Passion was falling behind, with 249, 296, and 235 million respectively. Cool needs to calm down a little.
• I leveled up 0 times, from 500 to 500.
• I have no idea how much gold I earned since I went from 68.9 million to being capped. I haven’t even tried to empty the impossible amount left over in the present box.
• I had 63k jewels prepared, which I knew was more than enough, but I could not doubt the possibility that Syoko5 would be a relevant card to roll for. I’m not sure how much I spent in total on the event and Syoko, but I only have 17k left now.
  • I saved some jewels by using 6,450 stamina from bottles. I still have 21,620 stamina left over in bottles.
• I got 3 memory keys from live party drops.
• I gained:
  • Only 1544 rookie trainers, despite selling 4000 of them in fear of capping.
  • 360 trainers, 160 veteran trainers, 18 master trainers.
  • 158 cute earrings, 134 cute bracelets, 34 cute tiaras.
  • 243 cool earrings, 145 cool bracelets, 33 cool tiaras.
  • 2253 passion earrings, 1173 passion bracelets, 235 passion tiaras.
  • 1692 shoes, and I went from 8k dresses to being capped.
• Natalia, featured on the passion auto team I used, earned over 2 million fans during the event. I only bring this one up because she’s pretty much the only idol I used that wasn’t already 10 million or above.
• I pathetically attempted to use my Live Party Emblems before the event taking them down from 900k to 722k. I ended up capped half way through the Live Party period.