Love Ikaruga, but always struggled to really improve at it.

Feels like the first 2 or 3 chapters are breezy, then at level 4 or 5 I'm just continuously credit feeding.

Good book! If you're interested in game history or id, definitely give it a read.

Some options at various levels:

• Take the phone app off your home screen
• Uninstall the mobile app
• Make sure it's not in your Firefox address bar's suggested sites or bookmark toolbar
• Log out on every platform when you're done looking at it, so there's even more friction to checking it
• Make a post there announcing you won't use it any more, possibly why, and share better places people can keep in touch with you. (Then stop using it with any regularity)
• Help your immediate family (or friend group) setup a group chat on some other platform, and share updates with each other there

Individually making good choices is nice, but even better if you can help other people leave it behind.

I appreciate your empirical approach!

Easy to see how folks jump from XBL is down to assuming content servers are down. But from your spot checks, sounds like it's spotty reporting, to an extent.

What was the login screen you hit all about?

Unplugging the network probably would not help, if you have a disc that needs a newer firmware than what's installed.

I don't connect my consoles online unless I get forced to, and I've run across it a couple times on Xbox One. Never bought into the Series line tho, so can't say if it's different these days.

And yeah, as far as current issue, I'd expect the headline is probably exaggerating.

Depends on a couple factors:

• Will the game play without a firmware update?
• Will the game play without a game update? (deliberate gate, or by presence of game-breaking bugs)
• Even if previously updated, does the game arbitrarily enforce a persistent connection?

The first one is usually the catch. On Xbox, you have to download the firmware update, it's not on disc like Nintendo and PlayStation. If you haven't updated your system in a while, you usually can't play newer games. (MS has/had a workaround for this, where you could download firmware from their website and install it via flashdrive. It's something, but still weak for needing Internet.)

Needing a game update happens semi-commonly too, but it's certainly the exception. Something like 80+% of games probably play fine without one, even on Xbox.

Single player games forcing you online all the time is pretty rare, but happens. Some especially spiteful, incompetent, or cloud-brained pubs will do it from time to time.

The GBA shop. I did know about it!

I remember having trouble getting in there at some point, but I was aware of it either due to the strategy guide or GameFAQs. I think on more recent plays, I've checked it out.

Ooh, hopefully I'm working from bad or outdated information. I'll look back into it.

Thanks for the rec! I have tried out Satori, I really like it and I need to use it more.

Some things bug me - I don't think they have a desktop version, there's a tiny bit of loading up front. But mainly, that's one I really wish I could buy a lifetime subscription to. Most are hard for me to justify, I think that one would be worth. Free is already really good though, lots there and I haven't really taken advantage, good reminder.

Won't get into the bad news details, but wish me both luck and mercy.

Done! Make it through

Was just recently trying to figure out how to browse my mbox backup, and wound up at the same solution.

I'm stunned that it's part of a plugin, and not a standard feature. Didn't see many other actively maintained programs that made it easy either.

Had a chance to visit a bigger public library a couple towns over. Found that they had some foreign language materials.

Read a couple Japanese children's books (translated from English), and some of a 10-minute Stories for 2nd Year Students. They were OK. Puts me off how much Kanji they don't use. Takes away valuable semantic clues. Also looked at a couple novels, which are just like, the most words everywhere. Nice to know they're there. Makes me appreciate the middle ground that Tadoku graded readers offer.

Working on building out an Anki deck for Thai alphabet. Found some on ankiWeb that seemed pretty good, but trying to add pictures and the example words. Also been doing Transparent Language Online, which is the learning app my library offers access to. Pretty good tool, especially for starting from scratch.