Monthly Digest - March 2021

Hey folks, welcome back to our monthly digest! As always, feel free to skip ahead to your preferred content by using the quick links provided above to jump to your the section.

Article of the month

Sorry, I’ve bamboozled you who’ve read the article highlights in previous digests, thinking it was an article only to find out it was a blog post. I present to you, for real this time, the article of this month.

A recent study of students at a certain university in the US found that more extroverted people suffered mood declines while more introverted people actually saw mood improvements during this pandemic. But, it also found that extroversion had the opposite effect on stress level where it was reduced in extroverts but increased for introverts.

Of course, that’s just an oversimplified summary from the article itself. I found it was quite interesting to read, I’ll give some of my thoughts on this but take it with a grain of salt. Everything is always better to read it yourself so you can decide for yourself. I’ve also read somewhere that we’re more of an ambivert and rarely only just introvert/extrovert. So we can safely say that most of us are right in the middle of this research.

Mainly from the perspective of an introvert, this isn’t really “surprising” to say the least, but I’m sure most of us also guessed it. Extroverts gets their energy by spending time with other people, and introverts (you guessed it) gets it from spending time and by being alone in solitude. Having to spend most of our time inside (at home), introverts (at least me) get to have a lot more time for ourselves, and as such, have better moods overall.

Honorable article mentions

• [seedubjay] Why Does JPEG Look So Weird?

One of the best explanation and visualization of JPEG out there. What really is JPEG and why can it be both amazing and awful sometimes. Read through this to really understand JPEG. In conclusion, JPEG is unique because it looks different to every other person, the end result can’t really be scored objectively as we all see pictures differently, so it will be subjective.

• [Godot Reddit Thread] Build a Dialog System Without Selling Your Soul

This isn’t the typical article I used to feature here, but I’ve had my share with game development a couple of months ago and this was well written. My experience with game dev wasn’t the best, but reading through this was fun and definitely informative. Especially when you’re thinking of going to the game dev rabbit hole, this will definitely help out a lot, specifically for Godot made games.

Content of the month

It was tough between Jujutsu Kaisen and Re:Zero Season 2, but JJK really won me with their continuous action scenes every 3 to 4 episodes. It’s indeed action-heavy and it was a real pleasure to watch every episode of it.

Honorable content mentions

• [Alchemauss] Re:Zero Season 2
• [Alchemauss] Mushoku Tensei
• [Alchemauss] Cells at Work! CODE BLACK!

Doesn’t mean that these shows are to be ignored, especially the second season of Re:Zero! It would’ve definitely be my content highlight if only it didn’t end in the same month as Jujutsu Kaisen. Premieres will be prioritized too, that’s why Re:Zero is here.

I’ll try my best to give these the review they deserved, someday. But until then, these are my picks to end the tightly packed Winter 2021 Anime Season.

Music of the month

At first, it felt like just another beautiful song I’ve heard from Tristam. But, as the lyrics sank into me, I realized there’s more behind this particular song. As someone who’ve followed and listened since around 2015 (can’t believe it’s been 6 yrs since then), this year releases hits different.

I’m beyond grateful that I can’t relate to this well enough as I’ve not lost someone close recently, but I do know that this must be hard for a lot of people out there that needs to go through the experience. I’ve read from some of those people that this helps them get through it. Although, the actual purpose behind the song might just be in this pinned comment from the artist himself

Appreciate what you have now. Much love. - Tristam

Honorable music mentions | YouTube Music

This was surprising as I thought it was only some kind of teaser for an upcoming project with only two and a half minute runtime. But, fortunately it wasn’t, and it was (as expected) good just like their previous releases. I’m hoping that they would cover a lot more anime OP/ED in the future, just like they did with season 2 of Beastars (for those who didn’t know).

There’s not much to say about this. It’s Grant. You don’t need to listen to know that’s it’s good. That was a hyperbolic statement in case you’re still wondering. But, if you’ve haven’t heard of Grant, now’s a good time. I’m sure most of you would agree that his songs are just beautiful.

I’m a sucker for acoustic covers. In addition to being one of my favorite songs, this is a perfect combination for me. Released right before March ends, it was such a pleasant surprise.

Video of the month

A bit of a different highlight this time! A skit from CollegeHumor (CH), this was by far the funniest thing I’ve seen this month and I dare you to find me another one that’s even funnier than this. I think I’ve watched this more than 5 times already and I still laughed as hard as I did when I first watched it.

Okay, enough with the introduction. I’ve always loved these “Message from X CEO” from CH, but this one was special because of how much we relate to it. I suggest you to watch it first before I spoil it in the discussion on the next paragraph.

I mean, seriously though, we had it in our mouth, everyone knew what Skype was (at least everyone I know), but what the hell happened?! What even is Zoom?! I didn’t even knew it until this particular situation and long distance learning forces ahm, asks me to use it.

Honorable video mentions | YouTube

There are so many good and awesome videos this month, I can’t put them all here! These are my best picks for this month, but I highly suggest you to look at the playlist (link above) and watch more than just these ones.

This was brought to me by YouTube recommendation. It was also the first video that I watch (in some time) with a normal playback speed, and it made me love Skyrim all over again to the point that I wanted to play it again. The edits and sound effects are top of the class for YT video, I can’t even express how happy I was to stumble upon this channel. I ended up watching their older videos, but this was by far the best (and most recent) one, I can’t even imagine the effort put into making this.

Exactly the title, “This is why we can’t have nice things”!! Is what I’ve been feeling lately for the past couple of months. This is exactly the answer I needed to hear. I won’t say more than this, go ahead watch this, and decide for yourself what you think of it.

The answer to my old-age question! I used to wonder this as a kid. What and why does every living things have this “number” where they only “live until then”. Can’t you really go past that, what happens if you do, and how does one determine this “number”. The number being life expectancy, and of course, I forgot all about it until I saw this video.

Headlines of the month

COVID vaccines are finally here!

This was too special to just be put in the video section, but it’s finally here. There’s so much to discuss, but I would like to say that we shouldn’t let our guards down yet. Though, I gotta say that it’s so amazing to know these were developed in only (roughly) a year.

For those who haven’t got it, please be patient and don’t let your 1 year of waiting inside your home go to waste by going out prematurely. For those who got it already, please be considerate and understand that not all of us has got it, don’t go out either and risk bringing home the virus. You might not get sick, but you might still caught it and spread it to those around you.

This was it. This is what convinced me that, although not all vaccines are created equally, there’s no “bad” ones or one that is worse than the other. Their so called “efficacy rate” with numbers near 99% thrown in there for their promotion isn’t really a big deal. Yes, they do matter, at least to make sure that it’s a legitimate vaccine, but it doesn’t mean that one which has 68% of that number is inferior to the other which has a higher number in any way.

I won’t try to explain it in detail here since the video will definitely do a better job and I might screw up some things (but at this point, I’ll assume you’ve watched it). But, an oversimplification is that “efficacy rate” is a number of people that DID NOT get infected after getting the vaccine.

Which vaccine will keep you alive? That’s any of them.

It isn’t about “which one will protect you from any infection?”, but the real question becomes “which one will keep you alive or out of the hospital?” The answer is any of the vaccine, and their “efficacy rate” is 100% for all of them.

Major releases everywhere

I feel this is worth mentioning in a dedicated headline that these softwares just got “major releases”, it’s like there’s something with releasing on March.

Exactly on the 9th to be precise, Jellyfin v10.7.0 and Sonarr v3 was released (or was finally good enough to get a stable release).

DietPi v7 also got a major upgrade although it’s only to smoothen the migration process to newer Debian versions.

Another one and probably my favorite is SvelteKit! It’s finally in beta and the repository is finally open to public on the 12th. I’ll be rewriting a lot of my sites and applications as well as starting new ones with this.

That’s it for our recap of March 2021, folks! Stay safe and have a great April 👋