Life Update: What I've been up to lately · 8:36pm Aug 27th, 2023
Hey everyone, I know it's been a while. A lot has happened for me lately, so I figured I'd let you all in on what's up.
So, I mentioned in my previous post that I appeared to have landed a promising career path in insurance sales. Yeah... that didn't really go anywhere. While I did make enough to break even on my initial investment in examinations, fingerprinting, and other initial upfront costs, I didn't make sustainable income. With student loans and other expenses I need to pay, this wasn't feasible for me. People just don't want to pick up their phones, and get cold feet about selling them things.
My (now former) managers decided to observe me doing a sales presentation, and found that I did nothing wrong, and started saying things like "We can give you some more training!" and "We can give you certain lead types!" But I knew that no amount of training would be able to control whether or not someone picks up a phone or has any spare money to spend. So yeah, commission-based sales was not the way to go. Disregard what I said about going for insurance sales, and especially what they say about making you a fortune; unless you get extremely lucky, it's just fool's gold. I learned that the hard way. 
I started looking for a new job a little over a month before I ended up leaving insurance sales. I applied to many places, had a few interviews, but got turned down by nearly all of them. Needless to say, I was feeling a bit discouraged and doubtful about myself, particularly with my father giving me a rough time about contributing to the household. Fortunately, however, I managed to land myself a job a little less than a month ago. I'm now working in collections, having to call out and take payments from credit cardholders who have fallen behind on their statements. It's not really a glamorous job, but if I didn't do it, someone else would, and it pays a decent hourly rate (quite a bit more than my previous hourly job that I was laid off from, especially since I am now working full-time, as I've finished school, in addition to it paying more than minimum wage).
It's still too early for me to say how well I'd fare long-term in a call-center position like this one. The office suite is a bit frugal with unmatching desk chairs at the workstations, a convoluted IT system that uses virtual machines linking to a remote mainframe, and poor building maintenance, including nonworking drinking fountains (forcing me to fill up my Manna flask at the break room sink; better than nothing, though). So many people working there smoke cannabis, which gives the parking lot a foul odor. Not to mention, I've been dinged on at least one Quality Assurance assessment, but I'm still in on-the-job training at the time of posting this, so it shouldn't count against me; I've made notes of what I did wrong, and now know to follow the call checklist to the letter.
The job itself is not that hard, but it is kinda boring, especially when you don't get any contacts and have to repeat the same voicemail script repeatedly. But yeah, I'll work this position for a while and see how it goes. Experience with it could even help me land a job with a bank or credit union, particularly as training had me learning about banking and financial regulation. And I should be able to have my student loans paid off in a timely manner, so long as I maintain this level of income.
I've also been taking some time to learn a bit more about some useful computer stuff, both during my period of "unemployment," as well as after I got my new job. I've decided to make the jump to Windows 11 on all my devices that support it, with the exception of my older school laptop, which I use Linux Mint on, and use as a secured device. When it comes to Windows 11, the upgrade was nice and seamless on my end, and no different than an annual feature upgrade to Windows 10. And Windows 11 is functionally identical to Windows 10, so you won't need to relearn everything. Plus, the former looks a lot nicer, and seems to run much smoother.
I did want full control of which updates would be installed, as well as if they would install manually or automatically, so I found a nice workaround in the form of Registry hacks in RegEdit, as well as the Windows "Show or hide updates troubleshooter." There's also a way to do the latter in PowerShell, which will eventually become the only way to do so, as Microsoft will retire their legacy troubleshooter once Windows 10 reaches its end-of-life in the back half of 2025. If you use PowerShell, don't use the version that comes preinstalled with Windows; instead, go to the Microsoft Store app, and download the latest version from there. And I highly recommend learning about all the commands you can run in PowerShell; you'd be amazed, all the things you can find it useful for.
Here's the link for showing/hiding Windows updates via the troubleshooter and PowerShell: https://pureinfotech.com/show-hide-updates-windows-11/
Here's the link for adjusting if Windows updates install manually or automatically via RegEdit: https://www.ubackup.com/windows-10/disable-windows-10-update-registry-8523.html
Also the RegEdit article was written for Windows 10, the process works just fine for Windows 11 as well. All programs that run in Windows 10 will run in Windows 11 just fine; I have yet to find a single one that doesn't. While it looks and behaves a bit different, particularly with stricter security requirements, Windows 11 is still the same Windows 10 we all know under the hood. Not to mention... I absolutely dig the modern, rounded corners of windows and menus. 
I did have a slight audio problem, with the audio being delayed in coming on when an app started playing it, but this was as simple as rolling back to a previous audio driver in the Control Panel. If you have any video, audio, or peripheral issues, try rolling back to a previous driver (you will need to reboot your computer for it to take effect), and the new one, while still being "installed," will not be the active driver, and it won't try to reinstall again unless you do so yourself.
I've recently also taken an interest in learning how to use the Tor Browser. Given how suppressed the Worldwide Web is in many regions, it's crucial to get some route around that censorship and see what other regions are saying, I feel. For those who don't know, Tor (and acronym of "The Onion Router") is a network, originally masterminded by the US Government, that allows for digital anonymity by masking your IP address, which the government intended as a means of not revealing the IP addresses of government computers. It does this by relaying your network traffic over different nodes, rather than going directly to the server you intend to visit using a standard browser. This allows you to access websites via other locations, with the exit (last) node acting as a proxy, making it look like the node is visiting the site instead of you. The Tor Network can only be accessed by the Tor Browser, a modified version of Firefox.
So far, I've been quite fascinated, seeing which routes allow me access to certain sites, and which ones are restricted in different territories. I've been looking at trying certain ".onion" domains, which are essentially regions of the Tor Network that cannot be accessed using a regular web browser, and these domains comprise an entire hidden side of the regular Internet (known as the "Surface Web"), commonly referred to as the "Dark Web," or "Darknet." While it has a bad reputation for the high presence of cyber criminals, there do exist many legitimate, and useful, information and service repositories in the Dark Web. I have yet to actually delve into the Dark Web, but should I ever have a legitimate need that the Surface Web cannot provide me with, it could be worth a look.
I get that I might seem shady for doing this, but if one is to achieve true success in life, and make the most of modern technology, one must explore all of its facets, and not just one segregated, and heavily restricted, subset of it. Now, bear in mind, there are many things you should never do, even on the Dark Web. Crime is obviously taboo, of course. And even over Tor, you should never try to torrent anything, as torrenting essentially requires the IP address of the end user, which makes you a dead giveaway and defeats the purpose of Tor. So yeah, long story short, don't do it.
Only use technology like this to meet your own needs, and ensure you do not cause any harm to others who do not deserve it.
Now, with all that serious drama out of the way...
I've also been getting into some new games lately. I've been playing The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, which I of course bought the day it came out. It's a great game, and really breathes new life into the same kingdom of Hyrule we saw in Breath of the Wild, with a ton of amazing new mechanics, puzzles, abilities, and challenges. Hogwarts Legacy has been equally amazing, but there are a few things about it that leave a lot to be desired. Hopefully there can be some DLC to add some additional spice to the game.
I'm also really hyped that the original Red Dead Redemption has been ported over to the Nintendo Switch, which I will be getting the physical copy of once it releases this October. RDR2 was no doubt a masterpiece, yet I still recall playing the original RDR, and recall liking it much better. So, this will be a welcome blast from the past.
And speaking of the Switch, the Internet has been buzzing with activity on rumors of Nintendo's next console, what the hardware will consist of, in terms of specs and form-factor, and also its name. Johnathan Bark, a user on Twitter (oh, sorry, I mean "X"... why, Elon Musk? I used to look up to you! 
) has alleged some supposed leaks that the new console will be called the Nintendo Focus. However, there are quite a few holes in these rumors, as they seem very fabricated. Will it actually be called the Focus? Who knows? We'll just have to wait for an official press release from Nintendo.
So yeah, I've been doing quite a lot of stuff in my personal time. I've had quite a few ups and downs, but there's no good without the bad, right? With the misfortunes I've had in 2023, let's hope what comes after will be better for me, and all of us. We all just have to stay focused, be vigilant, and never let our guard down.
That's all I have to say for now. I hope you're all doing alright as well!
thanks for the tip about windows and (hug), really sounds like you got into the same job situation you portrayed Kyle in, no offense.
RDR1, it sure is nice, but considering its just a port with no real improvements, multiplayer taken out, i find its stupid for 50 bucks. and twitter, very stupid
Funny though, after finishing RDR2's story, I kinda lack reason to continue playing/free roam with John. I mean, he's supposed to be with his family and i did almost all side missions as Arthur back then, so nothing left. Plus no steady income, given the need to clean guns and eat for stamina, plus hair/beard grow. While i never played RDR1, I actually loved how bounties repeated endlessly, you had something to do and an income that way
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Of course, glad to help make life easier for Windows users! Yeah, it was kinda hard for a couple of months, but hopefully things will be better. I'm now making nearly twice my previous part-time income while I was in school, so I certainly hope this sticks for now, until I can find an even better job.
Yeah, I agree that for a game this old, with limited content and lacking multiplayer, shouldn't cost $50. At least it has the Undead Nightmare DLC bundled, though.
I definitely know that feeling, completing a game and just feeling lost, since there isn't much more in the way of content. And it's a shame that newer game companies aren't coming up with ways to breath new life into games that you complete. I feel like AI could really help with generating content, or at least concepts of certain content. RDR2 definitely revealed quite a lot for the story, though, which really makes John's story in RDR1 carry quite a bit more weight than when it first came out, and players were left to use their imagination as to what happened with John's previous outlaw gang.
As for income in RDR2, I know of one mission in Chapter 3, called "Sodom? Back to Gomorrah," where you can make a boatload of cash by robbing the bank in Valentine, and can buy pretty much anything you want from there. And there is a trick that allows you to get the money from Arthur to John, involving the sibling couple, the Aberdeens, as seen here:
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I hope so too.
Yeah, though nice the ps4 still gets attention. One Thing the first rdr is better ttan its sequel, is you can save your horse through the horse deed. Plus how a mask prevents honor from falling, useful if you want to be the bad guy without worry.
Interesting, i just meant a regular income for John in General. Selling the farm goods only got me 16$ and that's a joke for the prices of supplies. Did treassure hunts with bounty Missions and hideout raids for money, so I had enough supplies for the epiloge Missions but that left me with nothing for after the Story, you know?
And another Thing i disliked, compared to rdr1, apart from the saint denis police, never encountered any npc with pistols, so i never got to use my c96 or the c93 after aquiring them, given how rare ammo is.
Lastly, i dont do this given how far our PMs are apart lately but good start into the week to you