niomi

Gamers looking at childhood games as an adult might think nostalgia remembers games looking better than they are. But they actually did look better then, and can still— on the displays the game's meant for.

On a modern screen, you can see an old game pixel-by-pixel, but this isn't the case on a CRT.

For examples: see Retro Games Really Did Look Better Back In The Day

There are many reasons not to use a tube TV. They are heavy, fragile, and can be dangerous if violently damaged. Do not pick one bigger than you can handle and risk dropping it!! They are hungry for electricity, and can keep a big charge[^1] even while powered off. And the air pressure situation due to the vacuum in the tube makes it extra explodey if busted on impact.

Also, it's important to keep magnets and most speakers away from a CRT. This will hurt your display. Mild damage can be repaired by degaussing, but too much can permanently damage it.

I warn against shipping these due to expense and fragility. Check out local marketplaces for pickups: facebook, craigslist, etc. You will find something. If you're looking for something special, be willing to make a day trip. Gas will probably still be cheaper than shipping ;) Even if you are personally willing to take the shipping risk, please reconsider, the supply of CRTs is finite.

Since they are so heavy, I'd go as small as you are comfortable viewing. Mine is 13” and I can carry it under one arm. The 32” we plucked from the curb was so tough for two people. It didn't work for long, and it's taking up a shit ton of space because getting it out will be harder than getting it in; I have regrets.

When CRTs stop functioning, it is NOT responsible to just put it on the curb. I know it's not realistic to dispose everything responsibly all the time. These can become hazards if knocked around so it's extra important to do so, you just gotta. Unfortunately, a lot of e-waste drop-off spots won't take them, for the same reasons they should. You might have to drive it personally to a solid waste authority.

But, if your broken TV is highly sought after, someone may gladly pick it up to have it fixed. (you can list it for pickup like this: nonworking TV for parts/recapping)

If you're not up for all this, some emulators use graphics to re-create the CRT effect.

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[^1]: this is partly responsible for many of the unique old TV sounds... and the intense static attraction quickly pulling in dust and animal hairs.

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HELPFUL INFO FOR SELECTING YOUR SCREEN: You don't have to worry about getting the best tube you can find. Any random tube set will be better than today's normal screens.

It can all be adapted, but it's best to choose a TV with the right inputs for your console— RCA is rarely best, but will work in most but not all situations.

Inputs from best quality, decreasing:

• Composite, the last hurrah for analog video cables, these are red green and blue for video. With red & white for audio, total 5. A great picture with composite inputs is the best CRT you can ask for.

• S-video, a better alternative at a time dominated by component, more likely to be found on TVs starting mid-90s. Hard to describe, but resembles the round parallel ports used for peripherals before USB.

• Component/RCA: yellow for video, red & white for audio. Probably the most likely output/input you'll run into, by the 90s these are on nearly everything.

• RF: looks like a cable jack. The only input you can count on in older TVs. Consoles after the 16 bit era (~90s) will require an RF modulator. This is a separate box to take your other outputs (probably composite/RCA) and output RF. New RF modulators might attempt to upscale, but vintage Radioshack boxes are inexpensive.

BRANDS

Obviously, picture quality is more important than brand, but brand is a start. It's best to look up the model, too, but if you're going by a picture from somebody's garage this might not be an option. VERY rough guide (in USA) of notable brands, with better on top:

• Sony Trinitron: you will probably have to pay a lot for this, if not, grab it immediately.
• JVC: before 2000 generally better, still many good ones after that.
• Panasonic
• Toshiba: best before 2001, still not bad after.
• Phillips/Magnavox: better before and after late 90s.
• Hitatchi: great in late 80s.

Detailed Guide for individual models & more brands

Computer monitors can also be a great option. They are harder to find, but will have better pictures (and be smaller) on average. They can connect to a TV console with some know-how. Be sure to get informed on PC input types (which I have not covered) and how to convert them to your console's outputs. Or build a retro PC too, for a bigger challenge and bigger flex in vintage collecting.

TEST YOUR CRT, IF YOU CAN

If you can, bring your console/s along and make sure it looks great before buying. If you have a flash cart, you can run a CRT test suite.

RELEVANT VIDEO When Worse Graphics Are Actually BETTER

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I know the hotline helps. Lots of positive testimony already, so I’m not covering it, but I am aware. And the truth is it still makes me angry. My big problem is: the Hotline is the bottom of the barrel for help

So here's a story...in international communities online, I’m asked to help someone’s American friend. eg: LGBT youth abandoned, someone impoverished & needing medical care, BIPOC and trans victims of violence.

What I'm about to describe is typical for all kinds of “assistance.” But I'll use an LGBT youth housing program as an example.

I am not well equipped to help people outside my geographical & personal network. Very few of the netizens who need help happen to be near me. I do know USian jargon, so I try Google for my overseas contact's American friend. On clearnet it’s mostly state-enabled programs.

Google listings are a bit behind the live page. I click on a listing for a housing program that says “here’s where to walk in” or “how to schedule an appointment” or “who to call for assistance”...

but the only information on the live page is that goddamned suicide hotline.

It's so common.

Maybe it’s defunded since Google made the listing; or it’s full, or only operates sometimes, or NIMBYs kicked the house out of their neighborhood so it’s trying to find a new place to go…

Typically, no such explanation for why the program has ghosted. So I asked a local reddit and I found out they only run this housing program in summer. Then why not also, “try again in a couple of months!” on their page?

So the LGBTQ+ teen can call the number and talk about how being houseless makes them sad. This teen has nothing but what they carry and a stranger who will never speak to them again. If they get beaten, trafficked, or killed, this volunteer will never know. And the volunteer says things like, “life is worth living!”

Life is worth it, even when your family has abandoned you. and your socks are wet and cold with no way to clean or dry them. and your tent & items you need get stolen and swept by cops. When all this brings you to the edge, the number will talk you down and insist you stay alive. A housing program is only there for the summer, but talk is here for you all year.

I get that talk can be helpful but it's also cheap. The hotline won't claim it’s a substitute for a house, and yet…in a case like this, I think: thanks for nothing.

A few more points in less detail:

• The volunteers try to manage different types of resources, but are ill-informed. Imagine the lost LGBTQ+ youth calls the hotline posted in place of a housing program. But volunteer recommends that same defunct program that refers back to hotline. Over and over I’ve watched the line provide friends or family a full list of 100% runarounds and dead ends.

• the suicide hotline understaffs with volunteers. Before 988, already a third of calls dropped before they get through.

• If the text crisis line doesn’t become a shitty customer service robot, I will eat my entire hat. Already, shitty robots are running a text equivalent to triage. These robots are capable of summoning interventions and police without any human oversight. Then the hotline sells user data to private companies who develop customer service chatbots.

• Volunteers talk vulnerable callers into calling emergency services including cops. They can arbitrarily decide to summon cops themselves. These “emergency services” are dangerous. Promotions for the hotline say, “you don’t have to be suicidal, call for any reason, just to talk!” but non-suicidal callers still risk getting wellness checks that can go bad.

• Hotlines increase psych hospitalizations which might seem like a good thing. Callers should have access to hospital care, if they need it. Yet non-suicidal people get trapped all the time, wondering what the fuck happened. The truth is, some volunteers overreach wrongly. Any depressed person expressing hopelessness is at risk of detainment. Involuntary holds are used disproportionately against minorities such as (but not limited to) nonwhite, non-men, and queer people.

• Actual talk therapists are on short supply. Especially long lines for therapists accessible to people in poverty. New therapists have the shortest wait for appointments and I thank them for their service, but damn. With the hotline, we are instead doing therapy by call center which is terrible.

• Recently, we got a final nail in the coffin for imbalance theory in SSRIs. This is just one more data point for the big picture: mental illness is not mere biological error. Maybe it’s not even very much of that. Our environment & society is making us sick. But treatment is too personal to actually put a dent in growing and widespread despair.

2025 Update on imbalance theory: This theory is not so dead as it seemed when I wrote this, but my point stands in that many mental illnesses are casualties of capitalism.

In summary, “reach out for help” or “find someone to talk to,” etc is secular thoughts and prayers. This is not suicide prevention. It is suicide delay.

Suicide prevention is access to food, homes, medication, education, transportation, and more. Without material and community support, people will die. That’s just the way it is. The sooner we act on that, the better. But the hotline expanded while social welfare is at a crisis level is insult to injury.

Depending on context I will use different labels, which can be confusing! So here's a handy reference.

GENDER

• pronouns: not important to me; You may use any.

• agender: it means I have no gender at all; more specific than nonbinary.

• nonbinary: a person not of binary genders. this is a more general/umbrella term than agender.

ORIENTATION

• polyamorous: I do not do sexual, emotional, or romantic exclusivity. I will take more than one partner and only choose partners who are well-adjusted to that idea. FYI, this being an orientation is somewhat contentious, but I consider it so.

• bisexual: attraction to at least 2 genders and possibly more. It's the original description I chose for myself as a teen.

• pansexual: similar to bisexual but slightly different implications/nuances.

Although I use *sexual labels because they are more widely understood and close enough, technically I experience no sexual attraction to anyone ever.

• asexual: or ace for short. Describes, more or less, a lack of sexual attraction to others.

MORE ACESPEC VOCAB

• acespec: short for “asexual spectrum”

• allosexual: a helpful contrast to the designation of asexual. If you're not asexual like me, you're allosexual.

This is a tough subject for me to cover because not only does the discussion contain a lot of conflict, but in my opinion… the difference between bisexuality and pansexuality is (drumroll) NOT A LOT. The differences are real but there are more similarities than differences. They are not mutually exclusive so I consider myself to be both.

If you know someone who prefers one and not the other, the difference matters to them. And the ultimate answer is, if you really want to know, you must never stop asking individuals what it means to them. There are caveats to the general imperative that we must trust people are what they say they are, because if (for example) you’re talking to a pan who says bis are trans-phobic or a bi that says pans are biphobic, that’s a real problem.

So let’s get into the root of this conflict where we can try to precisely define these terms while also explaining some misunderstandings. In a climate where activists are fighting the cultural hegemony of male/female gender binary, ignorant people will see “bisexual” and assume that means gender binary. The root of binary employed in both terms makes this misunderstanding inevitable.

What many don’t know is that the oldest and officialist bi-led organizations have been making their best and most sincere push for a gender-inclusive definition of bisexuality since the 90s. According to them, the binary in bisexual is: genders that are the same as yours, but also genders that are different than yours. Therefore, bisexuality has always included all trans and gender non-conforming people.

Because “the same and different, relative to the individual” as buckets for gender does not seem as quite so accessible as the obvious pitfall-buckets of “male and female”, enters the belief that bisexuality is trans-phobic.

But, just inhabit this binary-related misunderstanding of bisexuality for a second, and note that this misunderstanding STILL by definition includes trans people who are men and women. Why do they assume bisexuals do not include transmen and transwomen who are just as much men and women as cismen and ciswomen? There a big chance for a biphobic individual also projecting their own transphobia. We may even find such a person aboard a fucking choo-choo train of infinite phobias. Thus, if you pick a label in reaction to the other being less inclusive, you are ignorant and possibly telling on yourself.

In my humble opinion (and my opinion is the best source, obviously) I really think “attracted to people of genders (plural)” is a simple, good-enough working definition of bisexuality. Although the more technically precise term for what I just described as “good working definition of bisexuality,” probably is polysexual. Are you confused yet?

Pansexual, strictly, means attraction to ALL. I would say, attracted to any gender and/or all. All, (more or less).

There are reactionary pans who prefer to be called pan to express they are attracted regardless of gender. Attraction regardless is valid, but something that can apply to bis, too. So regardless can be real, can be a dog-whistle for phobia, as in “regardless of gender, unlike those other gender-superficial-sexuals!!”

Pans who believe bisexuals are, in contrast to them, attracted to genders first and people second… and pans who believe all bisexuals are trans-phobic… they do exist, and those pans are NOT COOL. Bisexuals who believe that all pans are biphobic reactionaries, those bis are NOT COOL EITHER. If you have believed this stuff, it’s OK! Now you know.

What I think we are moving toward is a convention where we have lots of prefixes-sexualities, some of them are more obscure, others are more popular. This is how language works!! Gatekeepers are intimidated by that. Get over it.

If you push too hard you might shit yourself.

This is first sentiment I recall when personally dismissing of the entire concept of self-love:

Self love was never meant to replace romantic love. Stop telling people to “love themselves” when they talk about wanting a significant other. Both are supposed to coexist. Wanting a partner doesn't necessarily mean you don't love yourself.

I like to see it because I've mostly failed to bring nuance to the recommendation of self-love. Advocates of self-love, especially if the suggestion is in response to my breakup, persist with their take on my self-esteem problem.

Self-love proponents often fail to recognize negative self-talk comes from internalized other-talk. When we ask these people to love themselves, we imply that the source of the hate is within and the implication goes unquestioned.

I have already seen a few great responses to self-love:

People with insecurities who do not love themselves are worthy of love from others

You don't owe anyone love, not even yourself. Also, self-love is not a prerequisite to being loveable. We could often even infer: a person who does not love themselves is unlovable by others because they do not love themselves.

I believe this folk wisdom on self-love comes from observation. There's some validity to correlating low self-love to relationship failure. Implying self-unlove to be the cause is possibly (probably?) not correct.

Self-love as self-care, which is not a replacement for community care

In western individualizing moral hegemony, self-love becomes a patronizing escape from our responsibility to create healthy communities.

In general, an individual's lack of confidence seems like an all too common explanation for actual or perceived unfair treatment. And I think something similar is happening to self-love. Like self-love, confidence isn't verifiable and measuring it is difficult. Because it's abstract, anyone can claim it's secret sauce.

There are those who need to improve their control of their own insecurities. But the issue was misapplied by bullies who also blame the person they insulted for feeling hurt. We want to believe that we single-handedly hold ourselves to unrealistic standards. Because we cannot resist insults from people with power over us.

So, I am feeling as though self-love as a description is generally an error. I'm also not saying assume the worst of everyone who says it. I just want to share my doubts in the entire type of thought. Self-love means many things to many people, so I tried to list some specific interventions that are implied:

• hedonism (but mostly in a safe, consumerist type of way)
• absolving guilt of the protestant work ethic for non-productive time or hobbies
• coping with a tendency to self-criticize
• revising, positivizing, and/or distracting from negative self-talk
• focus on building confidence by improving attitude towards own (perception of) flaws
• unpacking and revising co-dependence, revising this with “independence”
• building confidence, particularly confidence in one's independence, in an individualistic sense.
• confidence to go alone to popular semi/public dating activities. or overcome shame of being seen alone. (especially when this inhibits a single from doing a thing otherwise enjoyable by themself)
• learn to cope with spending time alone, or adjust to the sensation of loneliness. especially if this helps them avoid someone they miss
• coping with boredom in a general sense, especially if a cope of attention seeking got them into trouble
• defining and revising life choices from what the other wants, and instead, discover & do what the self wants. especially if it's something others used (social) pressure to inhibit

A couple more bullets could have been. I tried but ended up omitting because they described a certain hypocrisy. For example, someone attempting weight loss may at different times describe exercise and the act of “cheating” on diet as acts of self-love. But the entire time they are still being cruel to themselves. Struggling with self-cruelty, positive self talk becomes backhanded compliments. Treat yourself is actually help yourself to more guilt. Cruelty corrupts the would-be loving act.

So if self-love isn't working out: self-neutrality. No more extra work to appreciate self qualities. Everyone is different, but I don't think that's necessary. The self work is for self-understanding, self-accepting, self-revising, in the most nuanced and reasonable ways I know how. Love should be free to feel authentically, not forced.

Personally, being mediocre and benevolent is good enough for me. This might sound like a putdown. It's actually so hard for people to just take how I feel seriously. I would pose it as a self-depreciating joke.

If the school made good on their threats to jail my parents for my truancy, I could have been a Midwestern example of the “school to prison pipeline”. This is what Kamala is famous for in California. She got working class people on things like truancy and possession at a time & place when small amounts of marijuana was a felony. A Californian prototype of the prosecution that puts so many POC behind bars. If they are captured alive.

Although Kamala herself slammed Biden on his old timey support of segregation.... a hollow appearance of racial progress without any follow through is a reason picking her as his running mate is tactically sound. Both Kamala & Biden are actually natural allies on policy– Both ran “tough on crime” 90s campaigns aimed at swinging Reaganites. Public support for the draconian anti-crime measures depend on racism and white supremacy.

The Clintons also did this. They have admitted the codes used, resentment of super-predators, thugs and welfare queens, were a mistake. Clintons have been consistent with their apology for this in recent years; Biden flip-flops as if he’s just caving to pressure.

During the health insurance debates, we saw Biden pander to liberals who are afraid of change. Ironically, these people he panders to are nostalgic for the Obama admin– remember “hope” and “change”?

Kamala’s biggest contribution to the ticket will be her quick wit and powerful stage presence. If they do it right, this should make goofy Biden look better. (It could backfire and make him look worse, which racists will capitalize on when they release racist propaganda.)

The working class is too suppressed to vote in a leftist president. Despite a great demand. Being overworked & underpaid (thus little time/planning to get to polls), gerrymandering, voter ID, suppresses democratic process. If the DNC were not so biased toward the status quo and open to reform we may have made Bernie happen.

I think this election is going to come down to GWB era republicans who are grossed out by Trump’s extremism and superficiality. Polling shows that Republicans are very supportive of Trump as a group. It’s going to be a tough ask to bring Repubs alienated by their party out to the polls, but if there are enough of them Biden will win.

Despite my complaints I’m voting for Biden/Harris. But the reason for the complaints are that the odds are stacked against this ticket. Trump is more likely to win. He has a very strong base who truly love him. Whereas democrats are conflicted & tone deaf. Like Romney in 2012, we have a candidate so very bland at best, nobody is going to bother voting except the people who always vote.

I hope I’m wrong. But I’m getting my tubes tied before Trump continues to attack health care & planned parenthood.