(this is the #33 giveaway enabled post - check the giveaway details below)

Hey folks, it's that time of year when we start thinking about all we have done and what we expect to change, in order to adapt to this amazing thing, called Life! And I am getting goosebumps!

2024 started with some great memories from 2023 long trip to Portugal and SC23 (where I also met @simplegame) and lots of missing saliva from all the great food I enjoyed and missed while visiting.

Then I purchased my (at the time not yet known, at least that I could share) special cheaper version of Intel 14900K (because Intel was having problems but it was yet not very known), but I have still gambled with it, given AMD in NZ was WAY more expensive at the time, and I didn't want to deal with DDR5 still very infant 48GB - AMD compatibility.

Either way, I have done a ton of tests with the CPU, and it actually performed quite nicely. It was not better than AMD in some DDR5 high frequencies (at the time harder to get working, but) now very easy to get over Intel.

I have set new objectives for 2024 (which I am not sure I will meet, but I made a great effort I would say). Including living without electricity for 2 weeks! - I have learned and actually lived lots on those days...

Then late in April, I revealed what I had been building since the new year... but free time was about to get another stab! And by then it was already a roller coaster between doing the job and getting more people to help.

More time passed, and eventually, the HiveFest announcement came in... I was fricking nuts! At the time it was really an escape pod for what I was trying to cope form the entire year, and at the same time, something that was really bothering me if I would have to miss it out again. Hence why I did commit to it.

And from that time, it was basically a countdown process... where my excitement was (at least for me) visibly broadcasted.

I did a poll (to test it) and I was actually pretty impressed by the participation in terms of HP... thanks to everyone who voted on it.

Then ATX:BEER pool was created!

I kept trying to find a way to raise awareness about it and support all the games I play. While having fun myself, obviously.

September arrived and I could not wait to announce the new hats I had made. Two mates eventually got one of these ones (@nobutsd1974 and @caspermoeller89) even if the initial idea was to give them away on @hivefest, where I kind of failed quite brutally.

But some bad things come for good reasons, and I think the outcome of these was actually quite rewarding, both in terms of recognition from everyone who could not get one and from the lucky ones who showed so much appreciation.

And THEN, HiveFest 9 happened!

And when I was back, I made two long posts showing just a glimpse of it, to be fair...

PowerUp 💪 October - My HiveFest⁹ Experience 😍 Part 1/2
PowerUp 💪 November - My HiveFest⁹ Experience 😍 Part 2/2

And that's it... we are here! December... Damn... it was all SOO DAMN quick!

One Last month until next year? Bring it on!
100k Bitcoin? Let's go!
New HIVE Fork! Let's go!
Finally, exposing my full HIVE node in 2025 that I was never been able to... YES PLEASE!

You get the picture, 2024 was a bunch of great memories, and I am pumped to start 2025.

(note that all pictures up to here were grabs from older posts I have made, some, like this last one are actually from other people, like @louis88)

Now, let's drill down some other important wins...

This was a very nice surprise sometime after HiveFest... and just for you to have a comparison, from the middle of 2023, this was what I had!

So, definitely a lot more requests from everyone, and more or less double the amount of people.

And during Movember (😎), I had my record requests ever of +800k in a single day, of almost 1 Million! 😱

Recently, CloudFlare has made available for free some DNS Analytics, which is kind of nice (but I understand why they are releasing that for free too 😏).

These are not all my RPC requests (last 24 hours for all below), because many don't involve DNS resolution, and some are not even useful requests, but still, a way I have to check some stuff, so let's drill down through some of the stuff here...

For a while, I have been testing the IPv6 stuff, and so far have been quite nice, but most of the public still comes via the normal he.atexoras.com.

But when we look at the queries by source, it's where I become excited about the information this brings me...

Lots of European stuff but also Americas and a lot more Asia than I anticipated.

And then if we drill down through the type of requests, we can see IPv6 (AAAA requests) is quite attractive (hence why I have been moving into it since 2023). And for that conclusion, I am only even considering he.atexoras.com because the rest I know I am contributing some of the requests myself (yes obviously I use my own node... not doing so, would be duh!)

A couple of the other queries show me CloudFlare is still doing a great job on filtering "idiots"... but you can see on the query name "part" how people can get creative. Why all of these, and are they the only things I created?

The answer is no and yes. Querying a subdomain can be of anyone's creativity (does not mean it exists or even responds, but DNS will/can record that request). This is why I got really excited about these analytics, which not all domains may be able to provide.

Anyways, at this point "75% of my audience is already asleep LOL"... so I am going to shift gears.

In simple words with all the above, Thanks for the Support, whomever you are!

And luckily or not, for the content of this post, I just got my first long 1-hour outage, where all my stuff kept running and there was no disruption... while the entire neighbourhood was without electricity. It looks lame, but I was like, fricking proud!

For me was quite important to test a larger duration period. And with now almost 6 months (I think) of runtime, this UPS is still working very nicely. Keep it up baby! 😍

The old lead-acid version, after 2 years started to show weak moments and, after 4 years, it was useless, with less than 70% capacity.

The server, router, and ISP are around 200W min, with up to 300-350W spikes in normal operation. When I change this to an AMD, the power consumption will improve a lot, as a 14900K is not at all a power efficient CPU!

After the power came back, I leave the UPS in slow charge mode by default, to allow for the best endurance. I can though quickly change it to charge very quickly.

And the end result so far is this...

If the ISP does not mess up, I can choose to have 2Gb internet for more than 24 hours without any power! 🤩😍😎 - it was a ✅'ed thing from childhood!

This year, I have been less active in games, yes. Still did my best to support the ones I could spend both time around, and keep motivating people to explore them. Either here or on X #web2...

I know I fell WAY behind when compared with 2-3 years ago when I was 100% able to focus on almost every game. The ones that know me, understand this, and my support does not go away just because I don't have time. It just means I will be less active on "average" 😁 (yes, sometimes I might look like crazy excited, and that's because I am).

Most played ones, on an-ish daily basis, are (but not limited to):

Golem Overlord (that by now, because I was writing this post, I got heavily attacked LOL)
TerraCore (which is an oGame style game for me, where I am not using bots - I could use them, but I don't, otherwise it's not fun)
dCrops (where it has been proven to be a very interesting long-term game with always something new every few months, not super demanding and quite value holder)

My team on Golem Overlord is getting powerful enough and the game is turning out to be a very long-term game, but with a much higher demand of daily playing than dCrops for example. But both are super fun and have different ways to spend time or attention, which for me contemplate the time needed for me to pay attention to them.

Golem Overlord was something I would say much nicer surprise if you are an old OG #HIVE gamer like me, and recall DrugWars. I am not even comparing (because there is no possible comparison) but the level of excitement is similar. The difference is that Golem Overlord shows WAY more progress, commitment and professionalism.

TerraCore is that league of legends... I can't explain... I just play! And if you doubt my word... check my broadcasts from @forykw, @forkyishere, @ffoorryykkww, @loudutim and @forkyw (ALL my accounts). 😎

Finally, @dcrops and tagging them here on purpose. As I think they deserve some 💪🤘🤟👍 stuff. The game is constantly thinking of a way to keep both long-term players and bring new ways to invite new players that might just want to not keep playing forever but would feel enough interested to at least try it for a while with minimal cost.

I keep playing this game, and NOT on purpose BUYING out everything (I could but not doing so is keeping my motivation always high), and I like slow progressing very-long games.

The strategy possible in this game is amazing, kind of reminds me of dCity (which I occasionally check)... Recall? 😈🩸🍑 check https://dcity.io/city?c=forykw my city!

But back to dCrops, try it if you align with what I am saying.

From the perspective of how much I have spent on these games and how much I have withdrawn, which is not the purpose but I understand for some it might be the most attractive part.

I can only say, that on ANY of the above, I would be comfortable saying... I can lose it all, and "lose" nothing . I want them to keep evolving the game and for me, it's more important to use the tokens received from the game to play the game (most of the time I cross funds from games to balance my gameplays) than trying to use them for profit which is ONE of many unique features of why I like to play games on #hive.

And basically, long-term you would be supporting the platform venture and both having fun...

While taking some small profits initially could look like a very risky thing to "not do". If you account for the amounts most people are using, you can quickly conclude that it's not the size of the whales that makes a game great, but instead the number of players that keep playing them...

I will leave you with... just this... 😜

Besides the creation of ATX:BEER pool, and some added rewards for a 2 years distribution, lots of tokens were added to the distribution.

The pool has almost 4k BEER liquidity which is becoming interesting, but still quite very low for the most thirsty drinkers.

Sometime later, I also initiated filling a new pool after the construction agreement with @powerpaul from @cryptocompany, the CCD:ATX pool. And please, take this one as an unannounced thing as of yet. My objective is to reach 1 Million CCD in this pool, and then I will pause until additional news are released.

For last, the main and initial pool... ATX:SWAP.HIVE - this is its current state...

Mid (around May) 2024 before the new distribution, where most of ATX is being distributed from, it was something like this...

This was/resulted in a large jump once 100000 ATX tokens were issued and added to the pool distribution rewards. This process is described here.

And for the curious ones, if you want to know more about my thoughts behind why I am doing this... check my "Subscribers Only" #inleo post: https://inleo.io/@forkyishere/behind-the-scenes-of-atx-volume-1-ld3 (the read might be complex, so warning you in advance).

And join up... the clock is ticking again! 😎

My 🖐️ motivation!

Have fun, play games, learn, and when possible, teach new things to newcomers, showing them how interesting this place can be.

🤝 Follow me on X

@forkyishere 😈 (@forykw dark side) is a character I created, which emerged from Crimsonclad imagination 🙏 while dwelling over the dark dungeons of Discord chat levels.

Follow for #news about the #HIVE #Blockchain, and other stuff. I sometimes get crazy with what happens around social media. I am following all HIVE users! No promises of behaviour. 😁

In addition, if you are looking for a nice place to either reach out, share or just have a great time, come along to @atexoras.pub gatherings. We welcome everyone on the blockchain.

👉 Vote for Witnesses

(⚡Vote) - Hive-Engine here - voting uses staked WORKERBEE
(⚡Vote) - HIVE here - voting uses staked HIVE

(✍Delegate) - 3Speak Network - You win 0.015% SPK tokens if you delegate LARYNX to other nodes, as opposed to only 0.010% from your powered LARYNX!

@forykw is running 😎 @atexoras.witness on all the above 💪

📰 Public Hive Engine Infrastructure

• Cloudflare Protected
• HE RPC (https://he.atexoras.com:2083)
• HE P2P (https://he.atexoras.com:2053)
• HE History (https://he.atexoras.com:8443)

Any feedback/problems, feel free to contact me! My stuff is being monitored via UpTimeRobot where you can find their current status or just come along to the ATX Discord server.

😎 Looking for some #HIVE merch? (ASK ME) - I did try to setup something but I don't have the time for it anymore (for now). 😘

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