Welcome to Lifesteal, Minutetech

there's a gap in between there's a gap where we meet where i end and you begin

It was vital to me that I made this post

Any day now MinuteTech is going to hate PrinceZam back that way. For sure.

imagine a minecraft smp with an emergent story told in a chaotic and novel fashion by people bouncing off of each other that doesn't look anything like conventional stories and owns its own fascinatingly messy and gorgeous contradictions

i don't like you anymore!!!!!!

The computer is a machine built for looking at pictures of fish you wouldn't otherwise see. Anything else you can do with a computer was an accident and unintended

So true. Here's a Candy Darter for your troubles. They're critically endangered and only live in a few creeks in West Virginia. Aren't they pretty?

@existentialterror

Say what you want about the 2023 Shakespeare in The Park production of Hamlet, but the choices made in that play WORKED. Having Hamlet wear a black hoodie and camo pants and him dramatically putting his hood up when he was pissed off was inspired. Having Horatio video tape Claudius on an iPhone camera from the side of the stage during the play within the play was hilarious. Having the play within the play be a hip hop dance number that represented the murder!?! Fantastic. Having Ophelia be a singer before she went mad and having a beautiful voice that everyone loved to listen to and then seeing her singing get worse and worse as she got nearer to death?!?! Hamlet pulling out his iphone after killing Polonius to show his mom a picture of his dad compared to a picture of Claudius and angrily swiping back and forth between the two as he said “What judgement would step from this… to this?” The crowd fucking lost it every time. Horatio singing to Hamlet as he died made me fully sob every time. The way they did the ghost on stage was so chilling and I can’t even accurately describe it, you just had to be there. Hamlet being deeply exasperated the entire time was just perfect. Hamlet and Horatio had a secret handshake. Laertes inexplicably carried an acoustic guitar case for much of the play which was very funny but also hit you with the heartbreaking implication that he had used to play while Ophelia sang and he stopped carrying it after she died. It was peak teenage-angst-hamlet and it was so dear to me. PLEASE if anyone has a recording, send it to me.

OMG EVERYBODY LISTEN UP!!!

THEY'RE GOING TO BROADCAST THIS PRODUCTION ON PBC FOR FREE!! YOU CAN WATCH IT!! PLEASE DO!!!

Going to try to tag everybody who said they wanted to watch it in the notes:

So You Need To Buy A Computer But You Don't Know What Specs Are Good These Days

Hi.

This is literally my job.

Lots of people are buying computers for school right now or are replacing computers as their five-year-old college laptop craps out so here's the standard specs you should be looking for in a (windows) computer purchase in August 2023.

PROCESSOR

You can get away with a Ryzen 5 but an intel i3 should be an absolute last resort. You want at least an intel i5 or a Ryzen 7 processor. The current generation of intel processors is 13, but anything 10 or newer is perfectly fine. DO NOT get a higher performance line with an older generation; a 13th gen i5 is better than an 8th gen i7. (Unfortunately I don't know enough about ryzens to tell you which generation is the earliest you should get, but staying within 3 generations is a good rule of thumb)

RAM

If you don't have at least 8GB RAM on a modern computer it's going to be very, very slow. Ideally you want a computer with at least 16GB, and it's a good idea to get a computer that will let you add or swap RAM down the line (nearly all desktops will let you do this, for laptops you need to check the specs for Memory and see how many slots there are and how many slots are available; laptops with soldered RAM cannot have the memory upgraded - this is common in very slim laptops)

STORAGE

Computers mostly come with SSDs these days; SSDs are faster than HDDs but typically have lower storage for the same price. That being said: SSDs are coming down in price and if you're installing your own drive you can easily upgrade the size for a low cost. Unfortunately that doesn't do anything for you for the initial purchase.

A lot of cheaper laptops will have a 128GB SSD and, because a lot of stuff is stored in the cloud these days, that can be functional. I still recommend getting a bit more storage than that because it's nice if you can store your music and documents and photos on your device instead of on the cloud. You want to be able to access your files even if you don't have internet access.

But don't get a computer with a big HDD instead of getting a computer with a small SSD. The difference in speed is noticeable.

SCREEN (laptop specific)

Personally I find that touchscreens have a negative impact on battery life and are easier to fuck up than standard screens. They are also harder to replace if they get broken. I do not recommend getting a touch screen unless you absolutely have to.

A lot of college students especially tend to look for the biggest laptop screen possible; don't do that. It's a pain in the ass to carry a 17" laptop around campus and with the way that everything is so thin these days it's easier to damage a 17" screen than a 14" screen.

On the other end of that: laptops with 13" screens tend to be very slim devices that are glued shut and impossible to work on or upgrade.

Your best bet (for both functionality and price) is either a 14" or a 15.6" screen. If you absolutely positively need to have a 10-key keyboard on your laptop, get the 15.6". If you need something portable more than you need 10-key, get a 14"

FORM FACTOR (desktop specific)

If you purchase an all-in-one desktop computer I will begin manifesting in your house physically. All-in-ones take away every advantage desktops have in terms of upgradeability and maintenance; they are expensive and difficult to repair and usually not worth the cost of disassembling to upgrade.

There are about four standard sizes of desktop PC: All-in-One (the size of a monitor with no other footprint), Tower (Big! probably at least two feet long in two directions), Small Form Factor Tower (Very moderate - about the size of a large shoebox), and Mini/Micro/Tiny (Small! about the size of a small hardcover book).

If you are concerned about space you are much better off getting a MicroPC and a bracket to put it on your monitor than you are getting an all-in-one. This will be about a million percent easier to work on than an all-in-one and this way if your monitor dies your computer is still functional.

Small form factor towers and towers are the easiest to work on and upgrade; if you need a burly graphics card you need to get a full size tower, but for everything else a small form factor tower will be fine. Most of our business sales are SFF towers and MicroPCs, the only time we get something larger is if we have to put a $700 graphics card in it. SFF towers will accept small graphics cards and can handle upgrades to the power supply; MicroPCs can only have the RAM and SSD upgraded and don't have room for any other components or their own internal power supply.

WARRANTY

Most desktops come with either a 1 or 3 year warranty; either of these is fine and if you want to upgrade a 1 year to a 3 year that is also fine. I've generally found that if something is going to do a warranty failure on desktop it's going to do it the first year, so you don't get a hell of a lot of added mileage out of an extended warranty but it doesn't hurt and sometimes pays off to do a 3-year.

Laptops are a different story. Laptops mostly come with a 1-year warranty and what I recommend everyone does for every laptop that will allow it is to upgrade that to the longest warranty you can get with added drop/damage protection. The most common question our customers have about laptops is if we can replace a screen and the answer is usually "yes, but it's going to be expensive." If you're purchasing a low-end laptop, the parts and labor for replacing a screen can easily cost more than half the price of a new laptop. HOWEVER, the way that most screens get broken is by getting dropped. So if you have a warranty with drop protection, you just send that sucker back to the factory and they fix it for you.

So, if it is at all possible, check if the manufacturer of a laptop you're looking at has a warranty option with drop protection. Then, within 30 days (though ideally on the first day you get it) of owning your laptop, go to the manufacturer site, register your serial number, and upgrade the warranty. If you can't afford a 3-year upgrade at once set a reminder for yourself to annually renew. But get that drop protection, especially if you are a college student or if you've got kids.

And never, ever put pens or pencils on your laptop keyboard. I've seen people ruin thousand dollar, brand-new laptops that they can't afford to fix because they closed the screen on a ten cent pencil. Keep liquids away from them too.

LIFESPAN

There's a reasonable chance that any computer you buy today will still be able to turn on and run a program or two in ten years. That does not mean that it is "functional."

At my office we estimate that the functional lifespan of desktops is 5-7 years and the functional lifespan of laptops is 3-5 years. Laptops get more wear and tear than desktops and desktops are easier to upgrade to keep them running. At 5 years for desktops and 3 years for laptops you should look at upgrading the RAM in the device and possibly consider replacing the SSD with a new (possibly larger) model, because SSDs and HDDs don't last forever.

COST

This means that you should think of your computers as an annual investment rather than as a one-time purchase. It is more worthwhile to pay $700 for a laptop that will work well for five years than it is to pay $300 for a laptop that will be outdated and slow in one year (which is what will happen if you get an 8th gen i3 with 8GB RAM). If you are going to get a $300 laptop try to get specs as close as possible to the minimums I've laid out here.

If you have to compromise on these specs, the one that is least fixable is the processor. If you get a laptop with an i3 processor you aren't going to be able to upgrade it even if you can add more RAM or a bigger SSD. If you have to get lower specs in order to afford the device put your money into the processor and make sure that the computer has available slots for upgrade and that neither the RAM nor the SSD is soldered to the motherboard. (one easy way to check this is to search "[computer model] RAM upgrade" on youtube and see if anyone has made a video showing what the inside of the laptop looks like and how much effort it takes to replace parts)

Computers are expensive right now. This is frustrating, because historically consumer computer prices have been on a downward trend but since 2020 that trend has been all over the place. Desktop computers are quite expensive at the moment (August 2023) and decent laptops are extremely variably priced.

If you are looking for a decent, upgradeable laptop that will last you a few years, here are a couple of options that you can purchase in August 2023 that have good prices for their specs:

If you are looking for a decent, affordable desktop that will last you a few years, here are a couple of options that you can purchase in August 2023 that have good prices for their specs:

If I were going to buy any of these I'd probably get the HP laptop or the Dell Tower. The HP Laptop is actually a really good price for what it is.

Anyway happy computering.

Hey there, friendly reminder that this post was originally from August 2023; specs haven't changed much but I've now got a dedicated page on my personal website where I'm going to update specs every couple of months. Most recent update was for March 2024 and is more detailed than this post.

maybe if the minutetech team watched every s4 vod they'd get it 🙄not that hard

You wouldn't last an hour in the asylum where they raised me...

hi i have been TAKING NOTES and doing quick summaries of the streams i watched starting with void arc! they're not perfect notes or anything esp if you have different priorities than me but should give you an idea of what happened when and which are important vs grindy, which ones you can skim for a specific conversation/battle, etc. here's my notes on void arc (i also have notes for the more recent arcs but my notes on presidency arc are pretty sparse & my notes on the current arc include notes on jumper+minute streams which i don't want to put on zam's post, so if anyone wants those just hmu privately):

1/8/24 : baconwaffles stream, void hole yayyyyy. build base in parrot hole. planetlord is there. this is i think the first void-relevant stream?

1/10/24 : baconwaffles stream, recruiting jumper who + trying and failing to trap a couple people and getting a bit bitchy about it before successfully trapping 4C

1/11/24 : baconwaffles stream, jumper pretends to hire PMC to see if they will betray her, however she staged it, other void ponies plan to confront her tomorrow.

1/12/24 : baconwaffles stream, confronting jumper. it works out though yayyyyy. 

1/13/24 : mapicc & roshambo streams; mapicc pro-void roshambo anti-void

1/15/24 : baconwaffles stream, recruiting pentar, doing the jepex video. pentar stuff is relevant to void arc but jepex video recording isnt rly

1/16/24 : pangi stream, mentions recording the ending of the ro video yesterday and losing a bunch of hearts, zam is So Mad abt the foundation taking all his armor sets that he ~reconciles with pangi (pangi was anti-void). only relevant timestamps are 8:00 - 38:38. the first 8 minutes are maaaybe worth watching also but everything after that is just grinding hearts

1/17/24 : pangi stream, pangi grinds hearts some more. then FIRST SQUIDDO TUMBLR LIVE (tumblr imagine)

1/20/24 : baconwaffles stream, void ponies frustrated that they keep getting targeted, still don’t trust jumper. try and fail to do traps. also squiddo was live on tumblr live again and actually did lifesteal activities. our first and last lifesteal lore on tumblr live

1/22/24 : baconwaffles stream, minute has filled all the void traps at spawn up with water to Very High Up, bacon + zam + mapicc watch parkour civ, try to clear it out. bacon mapicc zam take a 3v3 w minute wemmbu and spoke. abyss gets frustrated a lot

2/1/2024 : vitalasy stream, vitalasy gets tour from 4C, flies with elytra for the first time, kills a couple of zam’s villagers

2/2/2024 : bacon stream, argument with ash about whether ash has to give bacon hearts back? might be the one zam referenced the next day, might not? note: i didn’t watch this one i just skimmed the vod. i should go back and watch it

2/3/2024 : pangi + mapicc streams. gordon ramsay IHOB bit. mapicc digs around in the floor carting and kills some people (mostly pangi). zam dies a bunch. nothing void-related but it's cute and fun if you are a Lifesteal Shenanigans Enjoyer

2/7/2024 : zam + vitalasy streams, zam + vitalasy meeting :DDD in which zam mentions that void ponies might want to end the server with this? also zam grinding stream in which he and bacon admit to reading tumblr

2/9/2024 : zam stream, making a depressing carnival for the void trap. mostly grinding and complaining.

2/10/2024 : zam + roshambo streams. this one’s kinda rough ooc, no one's plans work out. foundation tries to do a thing with withers but it doesn’t work out. carnival doesn’t work out either. nothing much happens. squiddo has an edited video of her pov of this!

2/13/2024 : vitalasy stream, vitalasy moves wardens, lies a little to jumper about heart count but promises to the viewers it'll make sense soon; mapicc was live but idk what he was doing?; zam is live on leowook’s account but doesn’t do much

2/23/2024 : zam stream, zam collects materials for a redstone machine, panics a little bit abt whether they might take the server off fabric, blows up some stuff for getting rid of All Of Spawn, talks abt editing his wormhole video. mostly just grinding

2/24/2024 : zam + vitalasy streams. on zam stream planet+minute jump zam+mapicc. session is interrupted bc the server goes down. void hole at spawn is coming along well. they play golf. void ponies all still think jumper is sus. on vitalasy stream, vitalasy does some terraforming, says his plan will Happen Tomorrow

2/25/2024 : zam stream + vitalasy stream + another zam stream. zam writes signs, void ponies take vitalasy hostage, jumper kills vitalasy, jumper goes live on vitalasy’s account with a book + scavenger hunt, vitalasy explains his plan of being with void ponies all along, gives jumper all his stuff, explains that he’s quitting lifesteal, and asks jumper to kill him; 3v5 void ponies vs foundation, foundation loses, planet kills himself; zam writes signs some more, void ponies decide to do a puzzle to give the foundation more hope. basically everything that happened on this day was important and lore-dense

2/26/2024 : zam stream, zam tries to make a sand duper

2/27/2024 : zam stream, zam builds detective agency. but pink this time :3 pretty kitty detective agency :3 also makes some paths. its nice but not much Plot happens

2/28/2024 : zam stream, more blowing up spawn lol

3/1/2024 : two zam streams, zam crafts pistons, uploads to VOD channel, watches more parkour civ, plays various non-minecraft games periodically. wemmbu and squiddo crash the server; wemmbu + zam confrontation, minute and zam feel each other out for an uneasy alliance against wemmbu while still being very much against each other <- first stream. second stream (might start after midnight/on 3/2 depending on time zone?): wemmbu + zam + minute at void hole, singleplayer testing

3/2/2024 : SO MUCH HAPPENS. wemmbu nukes. abyss scavenger hunt starts. etc. vods: 4c (pre-session), zam, minute, reddoons

3/3/2024 : zam stream, bedrock breaking slash valorant stream

3/4/2024 : zam stream, ash blew up the pistons Sadge. another grinding stream! in the evening ash and zam have a fight

3/5/2024 : minute+zam streams. REKRAP IS HERE. also jepexx trolls zam. and then zam goes on a healing arc and writes Positive Signs and gives himself a pep talk as an image of wemmbu

3/7/2024 : zam + rekrap + reddoons + poafa + roshambo. more puzzle solving. linear algebra clue is created. lots of grinding the machine and machine breaking. rekrap was live on his alt for a while also yippee! and then raided red who raided poafa who raided roshambo. stream chain :D i just watched zam for most of it though even though it was mostly just grinding. sorry to the actual puzzle solvers

3/8/2024 : zam + rekrap streams; once again i only watched zam. happy international women’s day! we get some eclipse federation mentions due to the clue which is awesome for me personally. also, wemmbu is unbanned & working on something; clown+minute+zam find a new orbital strike cannon, play around with plugin to see if he’s put stuff in it; wemmbu crashes the server a few times. imo primary interesting thing here was finding the orbital strike canon

3/9/2024 : minute + zam + jumper streams. zam and minute stream end of void arc. ashswag fucking HATES the linear algebra clue. foundation solves the puzzles with 5 minutes left before the bedrock starts breaking; void ponies all jump into the void except jumper, who reveals that she’s been a double agent for the foundation the whole time. then jumper goes live and does a qna!

I could NOT be in feudal Japan. Here are some reasons why