The GH60 Project: Building My Own 60% Blue-Switch Keyboard

The GH60 project is a tutorial-and-build-log kind of thing that lets you assemble your own mechanical keyboard. There’s plenty of official info here, and you can dig into the overseas sites for the details.

For us users, though, all you really need to know is that GH60 is the process of putting a mechanical keyboard together yourself.

GH60 is basically just a keyboard PCB. Once you have the board, all that’s left is soldering switches, adding a case, and deciding whether to throw in LEDs. At first I went in with the “if I’m doing it, I’m doing it big” principle when picking parts, and by the time I’d spec’d genuine Cherry switches + an aluminum case + a steel plate + custom purple-black-orange three-color keycaps, the price had shot past 900.

Hell, for that money why wouldn’t I just buy a Filco?

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Audio-Technica IM03 Cable Swap: AT-HDC5/1.2

It’s been almost two years since the IM03 arrived… I actually really like these buds. At first I thought they sounded muffled, but somewhere along the way — maybe they got broken in, maybe not — they ended up being the most “balanced across all three ranges” pair I own.

Clear highs, dense mids, and the bass is a bit lean, but I lean toward a light sound anyway. If I want bass I’ve got the IE80, so these became my go-to whenever I’m in a bad mood.

My IM03 is a Japanese-market unit, so no warranty. I used to worry it’d suddenly die on me like my late, lamented TF10 — and die it did, though not while any supposed warranty was still in effect.

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Purely x Cation Review

First off, my coworkers and my friends and classmates basically have no idea that I spend my time like a total degenerate binging Japanese porn games. If they had to wrap their heads around it, they’d probably just think I watch anime and play Japanese RPGs. They don’t really know anything about Japanese adult games — I figure they imagine it’s all at the level of stuff like Tail Walk and Artificial Girl.

Of course, there was one adult game title that recently became common knowledge… Purely x Cation.

Thanks to Ali213, thanks to the diligent reposting by sites like Chunan Beta, the news that “a Japanese adult game maker will use industry-leading Denuvo anti-piracy tech” became known far and wide. I get that AKBsoft president Kei Misumi hates piracy, but this kind of penny-wise pound-foolish move is still something I can’t wrap my head around. Honestly, when Purely x Cation was first promoted and I watched the intro on YouTube, I thought it looked pretty good — the E-Mote effects in particular were spot-on, way above whatever Maitetsu is doing. But the president always rushes out to flex and beg for a slap in the face. Last time that game Office Worker’s Hookups… oh sorry, Romance Situation got cracked half a day after launch and got slapped, and I felt kinda bad for him. But this time he comes out provoking again, and I really don’t know what to say. Doesn’t he know the best move is to keep your head down and quietly make bank?

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Besides, I’d actually considered buying the legit version of this game, because Denuvo isn’t that easy to crack — if it really came out and I couldn’t play it, that’d be a shame. But then I looked at the game’s official site bonuses and I was just floored. Aside from one illustration, there’s basically nothing. I don’t know if the president spent all the money on the encryption. Given the universally known fact that “buying the game = buying the bonuses,” the president being this stingy, how could this game possibly sell? Even someone like me, raring to play it, lost all desire to buy… I figured if there’s no crack, then whatever, I’ll leave it for later.

But reality is truly dramatic — the game got leaked and cracked two days after launch, and the cracker gleefully said the game didn’t use Denuvo encryption at all; the crack just bypassed the so-called online authentication. After all, this is an eroge with those engines everyone’s seen to death… Anyway, the president got slapped again.

I don’t know what the president is thinking now, I just hope it doesn’t affect future games. Adding more bonuses is the real way.

So back to Purely x Cation itself — how is it?

I’d say it absolutely lives up to the promotional expectations: a romance-raising game that lets you experience the beauty of first love.

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Chord Mojo

The Chord Mojo is a DAC/amp combo that’s been getting pretty hot lately, mostly because it’s tiny but packs a ridiculous amount of power.

According to the folks over at Soomal, the Mojo’s magic comes from its advanced tech and craftsmanship, which is how they managed to make it so small. But science and technology are the primary productive forces, and I couldn’t resist the temptation to grab one for myself—at the very least it takes up less space in my backpack.

Honestly, after getting it, I feel it’s well worth the money. The sound is decent, and the playability is off the charts!

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FiiO AM5 Headphone Amp Module

I bought this because after picking up the AM2 last time I found out I’d screwed myself.

Because right after I paid, FiiO announced: “Every X7 owner gets one chance to buy a module at half price.”

So I said: “What if I already paid full price?”

FiiO was very polite about it: “No worries, we’ll have other modules down the road, you can save it for next time.”

………………

So I finally used that chance.

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Shunki Gentei Poco a Poco! (春季限定ポコ・ア・ポコ!) Review

I was in a bad mood a while back and figured I’d play something that’d cheer me up, which is how I ended up seeing the OP of Shunki Gentei Poco a Poco! (春季限定ポコ・ア・ポコ!) on YouTube. Actually, that OP sounded way too fucking familiar, because it was on some Angel Note music collection CD I bought, and I’d listened to it plenty of times. I just didn’t know it was this game’s OP.

The OP is really damn melancholic. You can tell the protagonist lost someone important and can’t climb out of that shadow. But then I looked up reviews and they were all, every single one of them, cheerfully insisting this is a happy fun-time game.

Whatever. I happened to want some comedy anyway, and once I saw the little sister’s CV, I was in.

So how was it, you ask…

Is this game melancholic like its OP, or cheerful like the internet says?

Both are correct, honestly.

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Lamy Safari in Lilac Purple

Buying this was pure impulse — I was ordering it for someone else, saw the color, thought it looked genuinely nice, and it’s my kind of purple, so I grabbed one for myself too.

After ordering on the official site, I found out they also have a Taobao flagship store. And with the official site order, I don’t even know when the hell it’ll arrive…

Later I asked the official staff on X (Twitter), and they said the official site and Taobao are the same, no need to worry.

The pen supports engraving, but only in English. I got plumlis put on it… because I honestly couldn’t think of anything else. kiritanihaha is too long, hentai is too short.

When it arrived I was struck by how, as expected of the domestic version, the packaging is way nicer than the blue Alstar I bought on Taobao.

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