Scrolling tiktok gave me a mid life crisis

0:00 The other week, an uncle on my fiance's side passed away,

0:02 and I had maybe two conversations with him tops.

0:05 I didn't really know him, but at the funeral,

0:07 his nephew gave a speech about the man that he was, and it really moved me.

0:11 He told stories about the times when his uncle was selfless,

0:14 inviting, hardworking,

0:16 but he even touched on some of his flaws, his vices, you know, the human stuff.

0:20 And it just sucks that I really didn't get

0:22 to know him until after his death because to me, he seemed pretty bitching.

0:26 But I guess that's the gift of funerals, right?

0:28 No matter which funeral you pull up to, you're

0:30 almost guaranteed to get testimonials on someone's legacy.

0:33 But one thing I could not stop thinking is what

0:36 are the things that inspired him to become that person?

0:39 Like I know the broad strokes of his behaviors now, but what shaped him?

0:42 And my first thought was I can ask some

0:44 of the people that know him what his interests were.

0:46 Maybe that'll give me a better sense

0:47 of the things that shaped the person that he became.

0:49 But then that thought changed literally the next day

0:52 when I was slapped in the face with crazy nostalgia.

0:54 I'm talking the holy I want to cry kind.

0:56 I was scrolling Tik Tok and came across a cut scene in Kingdom

0:59 Hearts 1 near the end of the game that I had completely memory hold.

1:03 Long story short, the main character, Sora, sacrifices his life to save a friend

1:07 and the villain is all like, "Waha, he's weak.

1:09 No one cares." And all his friends are like,

1:11 "Nuh-uh." And then somehow revive Sora using

1:14 the power of friendship or something like that.

1:16 Look, this went hard when I was 11, all right?

1:18 But suddenly a flip switched in my brain.

1:20 I remember where it was at when I was playing it, how I was feeling,

1:23 who my friends were at the time, how I viewed the world back then.

1:26 It was like taking a dagger right in the fields.

1:28 And at that moment, it made me realize how many experiences,

1:32 especially from childhood, quietly shaped the people that we become.

1:35 And there isn't anyone on this planet other than me,

1:38 who can identify the things that had the greatest impact on me.

1:41 And now I'm in this feeling that if I don't consolidate that now,

1:44 that data about me could be lost forever.

1:46 And now I want to build something,

1:48 a time capsule of sorts, something that will preserve those influences.

1:52 So even when I'm long gone,

1:53 I can leave behind clues to the person that became beyond just testimonials.

1:57 [music] And that's why I want to introduce to you to Project Edia.

2:00 Edia stands for everything that I am.

2:02 I know, just let me be cringe.

2:04 But it's a dedicated device that plays media that I completely forgot about,

2:07 but that fundamentally shaped me on loop forever,

2:11 or at least until the device breaks.

2:13 And it will just live on my office wall,

2:15 featuring in live streams, videos, you name it.

2:18 Hopefully forcing you to feel something deep within you as well.

2:20 It's a Raspberry Pi 5 running a basic script hooked up to a 5-in DSi display,

2:25 but I'm still working out the criteria for what belongs on this device.

2:29 The only rule I've made so far is that when I look at it,

2:32 I want to feel something deep.

2:34 But I've already loaded it with a couple of different media for testing.

2:37 And so, for demonstration, I'm going to tell you exactly how a couple

2:41 of clips shaped the person that I am today.

2:43 Super Smash Bros.

2:44 64 Opener.

2:45 This game inspired me to get [music] into game design.

2:48 When my family moved from Virginia to California, the entire car ride,

2:51 I was obsessed with designing new stages

2:53 for the game in a little composition book.

2:55 It was quite literally the only thing I could think about for months.

2:57 And to this day, this franchise brings

2:59 so many of my friends and family together.

3:01 Forever goated.

3:02 A clip from Star Wars Clone Wars.

3:04 I remember being obsessed with this series when it came out.

3:06 And this clip is probably the best from [music] the entire thing.

3:09 It's just a beautiful display of just how powerful a singular Master Jedi is.

3:13 the choreography, the framing, the use of silence,

3:16 the sound effect choices, the lack of spoken words.

3:19 Oh man, it's just a masterpiece.

3:22 And honestly, this is my benchmark when comparing any and all animation.

3:25 If you haven't already, please go watch this series.

3:28 And if I someday get the opportunity to animate my comic book project,

3:31 this 100% will be my north [music] star.

3:34 And Xiao Xiao 3.

3:35 This was a groundbreaking Newgrounds project at the time.

3:38 For those of you that might be a bit too young to understand,

3:40 this dropped at a time where finding

3:42 this quality entertainment for free was a rare thing.

3:45 This was before YouTube.

3:46 So, if you didn't see it in the theaters or on cable television,

3:49 it probably doesn't exist.

3:50 I've watched this more times than I can count.

3:52 And this piece helped push me towards learning how to animate in my early years.

3:55 And it really helped get me into that self-taught mindset.

3:58 Long live Xiao 3.

4:00 Yo, do you get me?

4:01 All this media is going to play on this device with zero context.

4:04 So, anyone that sees this clip won't know that I cried watching it as a kid.

4:08 But that's not the point.

4:09 The point is everything that you see

4:11 on this device somehow shaped the person that I became.

4:13 But enough yapping.

4:14 Let's polish this bad up and add it to my wall.

4:17 What I need next is a custom case for it because this is a multi-board wall,

4:21 which is basically a 3D printed customizable standardized wall that I use,

4:26 which means I need to find a good case for this so

4:29 that I can add adapters to it and hang it on the wall.

4:32 So, I began to look for a 5-in Raspberry Pi screen case model

4:36 so that I can add the appropriate wall adapters to and 3D printed,

4:39 but I might have been a little too quick with the draw because I printed

4:42 this without doing any measurements and this case

4:45 was the wrong fit for my screen.

4:47 Wait a sec.

4:47 Are they not meant to be attached?

4:49 Wait a sec.

4:49 How does this work?

4:50 Actually, it looks good.

4:52 I guess, right?

4:53 But then to get this like that, I would have to seat this one first.

4:58 [music] Is this rated for the wrong screen?

5:00 Perhaps this might be printed the wrong screen.

5:02 Ayay.

5:03 Okay.

5:03 It was a complete waste of 6 hours.

5:06 But after further searching and actually investigating the dimensions this time,

5:10 I was able to find this model that seemed to be just what I was looking for.

5:14 You uh seated into this thing.

5:16 You attach the the pie to the back.

5:18 I checked out the measurements.

5:19 Everything seemed to be on point.

5:21 It's about a 2-hour print.

5:23 And uh I hope and pray this will get the job done.

5:26 So I only printed about 5% of it just to be sure.

5:29 And sure enough, oh that's kind of snug.

5:32 Oh, that's snook.

5:35 Oh, look how snug that is.

5:37 Look how snug that is.

5:38 I think we found our match.

5:39 And so I sent it to print, but it was a little too snug.

5:43 My screen didn't fit in the full print.

5:45 Probably because I had contorted strangely to get it in there just right.

5:48 So I printed it again, scaled up, and it did fit.

5:51 But now I realize my pie placement is

5:53 in a different place than the original modelers.

5:55 And so the power hole doesn't line up.

5:57 And so I printed out again with a bigger hole cut,

6:00 but was not paying attention because I didn't make the hole tall enough.

6:03 And then for a final time, I just made a big blowout hole for the power.

6:06 Sent that out the print.

6:07 And thankfully, part one is complete.

6:09 But now I turned my focus to the back piece because I needed

6:12 to add the wall adapters to it so I can hang it on the wall.

6:14 But I was afraid the weight might cause

6:16 the device to fall with the back piece still hanging.

6:18 So I also wanted to add some screw fastening to keep the two pieces one.

6:22 But when I go to mod the back piece,

6:24 it was taking 5 minutes to load every time I try to do something.

6:28 I guess free CAD still needs some development time in the oven.

6:31 But while I don't recommend this in most CAD [music] cases,

6:34 I hop over to Blender to get my dirty work done with no hitches or freezes.

6:38 All hell the powerful Blender.

6:40 And then the last and final challenge was trying

6:42 to figure out the right orientation to print it.

6:44 Got many failed prints,

6:45 but just laying it flat with a bed of support was the best option in the end.

6:49 But that's why the back looks so ashy.

6:51 removing all that support was a [music] mission.

6:54 And here we have the final device.

6:56 You can see it's playing a legendary Matrix scene at the moment.

6:59 And yeah, it's really as simple as you think it is.

7:02 There are currently about 30 pieces of media looping on this randomly.

7:05 And I'll slowly be adding more over time as I remember to add them.

7:09 But I love this project.

7:11 Now, as you can imagine, it's impossible for this device to completely represent

7:15 everything that made me the person I am today.

7:17 for example, like racist experiences I've had as a kid,

7:20 or fake being sick on 911 so I can stay home and watch the news all day,

7:23 which I both equally contributed, if not more, to the person that I am.

7:27 But the problem is, I don't really

7:28 have any media that triggers my racist experience.

7:31 [music] And I'm sure you understand when I say I don't want

7:34 to walk in my office and see planes crashing into buildings every day.

7:37 So, there are caveats to this project.

7:39 But disregarding the dilemmas, I hope you enjoyed the video.

7:42 Shouts to all my patronons on screen.

7:44 Y'all, for real are the real ones.

7:45 For real.

7:45 For real.

7:46 And next time we'll upgrade this device to have an unmute button

7:48 that I can press to hear the audio it's playing with the clip.