aeliussaionji

[aeliussaionji]

Scattered thoughts on my relationship to media

I often muse "since criticism is subjective, how do we confidently asses a thing? Who decided what makes something 'good'?". hbomberguy's "RWBY is Disappointing" video is making me do just that.

Going in I expected him to reveal things I overlooked, as I can be pretty bad at noticing inconsistencies in media. But to the contrary, in the first half of the video, he focuses on talking about aspects of the show I don't care about, or even find endearing. The latter half(ish) focuses more on how the writers drop the ball in trying to tackle the subject of racism. In the rest of these scattered thoughts I am not referring to that- largely because I didn't watch it all at once, and much of my thoughts happened following my first intermission.

But first- something else entirely:

Some years ago, friends and I discussed our thoughts on the new star wars trilogy. The movie where Kylo and Rey team up for the fight in the throne room is easily my favorite of the three. The first entry was boring and the third one is a crime. But the second- it explores new ideas about the Force not being binary, has amazing visual scenes (some of which everyone hates for the lore implications), it has that friggin' amazing throne room fight where Light and Dark team up, after which there's a very compelling "we should join forces" moment. Given how much the movie had broken off traditional star wars thus far, I was genuinely uncertain what Rey would do, and in that moment I was more engaged than I had ever been with any star wars content before.

People who dislike that movie counter with "but why would the commander do X in scene Y? Makes no sense!" or "the whole sequence with the casino was bad". And to me that's… I literally don't remember those things exist until people complain about them. I am laser focused on what I enjoyed and tune out what didn't work for me. In the discussion I was having among friends, the primary complaint they had is how the second movie breaks continuity of the trilogy. As I see it, the first movie is unobjectionable and technically good, I never hear passionate criticism for that. It's also just a nothing burger. I've near forgotten the entire thing. Nothing happens in it to pique my interest. It seems that's true for others as well, given that any discussion of the trilogy I've heard very quickly becomes about what the second movie did wrong. Would the second movie be "better" if it were as unobjectionable as the first? Would the trilogy? Many seem to prefer simpler works with competent execution, which, I can get into as well! But when shards of creativity capture my attention, I find myself either forgiving flaws, forgetting them, or filling in blanks where no details were provided. So: I don't give a damn that the trilogy is now incoherent as a whole! I really, really, like certain scenes of the second movie and give zero thoughts to the rest.

To which my friend responds, "do that in a different story!" But does that mean they'd prefer something competently constructed and less creative, like the first movie was? After all, I see plenty of energy spent dressing down sloppy execution of the second movie, but hardly any energy is given to criticizing how creatively bankrupt the first movie is. In this dichotomy I've constructed, I feel I'm in the minority for preferring a creative mess.

(Also the reality of capitalism in Hollywood is that writers don't often have the freedom to just make new IPs; existing IPs are what's on the table and writers make due. That's how it's gonna be, might as well consider such stories to be standalone. Blame capitalism, not the writers.)

Back to RWBY: hbomberguy keeps complaining that RWBY's animation, writing, voice acting, songs, etc are all amateur. And, yeah man, it's literally a first work by amateurs. Halfway through his video, the point he keeps returning to is that the show has good ideas but the amateur efforts holds it back. And… yeah man, amateurs have good ideas sometimes? Ep1 pretty firmly establishes the level of quality the creators are bringing to the table, and I calibrated my expectations accordingly.

More than just calibrating my expectations, I can find the amateur aspect endearing, and I enjoy seeing the voice actors and animators and writers improve as the series goes along. It's like its own meta narrative- we the viewers get to witness the voice actors grow more confident over time. They come a long way from their early shy and clunky performances.

Now, I don't necessarily think that criticism should be "calibrated" to expectations, or that media should be graded on a curve. It's completely fair to judge what's on the table no matter who made it. I agree with basically all of hbomberguy's criticisms, I'm enjoying the detective work he has done to outline how and why the quality may have suffered, I'm laughing along with his jokes, and certainly his criticisms could help the team grow as creators. It's just that his delivery leaves me wondering if he's playing up his reactions for comedic effect, or if he genuinely can't engage with amateur efforts. This leads me to an introspective thought spiral- there are many examples of media I quite like where the execution is fumbled in some way. There are many examples of media with stellar execution, but I'm simply bored by the content. If I were to ever try and formally criticize something, what form should my criticism take in this framework? Should my criticism value execution over creativity? Excellent execution can be an art in of itself and I often do enjoy a job well done, but in general I don't derive much enjoyment from how technically well executed the art is. Should I, though? Are my media recommendations to friends worse off for my tendency to forget that which doesn't interest me? Should my critique spend time grading creators on form, even when the mistakes don't bother me personally, or is it enough to simply expand only on what I personally experience? Does loving content with poor execution mean I have mid taste in media?

There is another more personal layer to my thought spiral reaction. hbomberguy spends some time demonstrating that certain concepts in RWBY are not explained well and would be confusing to first time viewers. This leads me to think that I'm so accustomed to being out of the loop that I don't blink when something doesn't make sense, and in fact I might not even notice ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

There are many works which avoid directly stating authorial intent, instead (hopefully) leaving enough information for the audience to arrive at the conclusion themselves. This is often stated as "respecting the intelligence of the audience". Problem is, I may not have enough context to work it out, and I'm not always on my A-game while consuming media. Probably most of the time I am very much not! I think I've come to assume that when I encounter a point of confusion, the failing is mine.

Me, enjoying a show as much of the subtler meaning flies over my head:

[aeliussaionji]

A FAQ (of sorts) about FPS Hz Latency & Peristence

These are all things that have been said to me over the years. I didn't necessarily have the reply ready to go at the time, but I never stopped thinking about how I should have answered. Yes, this is a rehearsed shower argument presented in writing. Jokes aside, this is an area of intense curiosity for me and I'm always eager to demystify it for whoever asks. I am by no means an expert on the subject and here I will only be addressing some core concepts in a casual manner. If you want to gain a deeper understanding of what I discuss here, the blurbusters blog is an excellent resource: https://blurbusters.com/category/area51-display-research/. Additionally, this old page from Microsoft's hardware developer documentation is a good read https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/windows/hardware/design/dn642112(v=vs.85) (heads up, they use the word 'stutter' as a catchall term referring to many things, including what is today more properly known as 'judder').

Keep in mind, vision is a complicated process that is constructed by your brain. We do not operate like cameras. A decent sample of the complexity of vision can be found here https://www.pcgamer.com/how-many-frames-per-second-can-the-human-eye-really-see/.

Despite the "statement/response" structure I've chosen, this is meant to be read in its entirety. I attempted to keep answers somewhat brief, and to have later answers build upon concepts discussed in previous answers.

The "FAQ"

"Higher framerate only matters for fast paced shooter games, it doesn't benefit me because I play other kinds of games."

The unstated premise: "there's only a mechanical benefit, and the benefit is strictly about player performance." Yes, low latency is important for competitive play, and high framerates reduce latency, but framerate in of itself has a qualitative benefit separate from reducing latency. Arguably, it matters more for "slower" games! Framerate is distinct from Hz is distinct from latency.

"I can't see the difference between 30 and 60, or 60 and 120"

If you're curious and want suggestions for what to look at, begin with comparing high and low fps for "slower" games; particularly ones where the entire frame moves slowly and steadily. The difference is more pronounced in some contexts more than others. Also check out these two browser demonstrations.

"120 was a huge qualitative bump over 60, but any higher offers diminishing returns."

Anything over 120fps? Probably. Over 120Hz on a sample&hold display? Well, it depends. Without some form of blur reduction present, blur is a function of Hz. Higher Hz confers less blur. There will always be contexts where any amount of blur is quite noticeable and some form of mitigation is desired. As an aside about technology advancements and "diminishing returns", often enough technology evolves in unforeseen directions. Invariably something new comes along and fills the possibility space; something which was not previously possible with the prior constraints. Although perhaps that's not indicative of how much you'll care about the hypothetical new thing :)

"Why did 30fps suddenly become a problem when it never used to be? There were plenty of 30fps games in the past and no one complained- in fact, Ocarina of Time was 20fps! Now that you have highfps, you just think anything less looks worse."

The problem is with "persistence of vision", a factor minimally present on CRTs but is a large thorn in modern sample&hold displays. I'll say it again: 30fps was never the problem, persistence is the problem. Furthermore, when viewer attention is fixed to center screen, there's less opportunity for "persistence of vision" blurring to occur. Thanks to a lack of analog camera control (and with Ocarina of Time in particular, z-targeting) many such old games hold up remarkably well on our modern sample&hold displays. The same saving graces are not guaranteed present in modern games, however. :(

"make up some question here I guess, to split up this dumptruck subject"

Consider the following:

A 0fps static picture looks just fine on a sample&hold display.

A lowfps scene where the camera is static but has tiny objects moving within it will also render just fine, because blur is restricted to tiny objects- and even then only if your eye is actively tracking those objects. The object's size, speed, and distance-traveled are all factors that influence how much blur we perceive. The size of your display and your viewing distance may also be factors!

Take a look at these pixel art animations (artist 1041uuu on tumblr)

To my eye, these look great, even on a sample&hold display. They are 6fps and 8fps, respectively. In both, each object has minimal motion, and there are many moving objects. Therefore, no one object has much blur, and my attention is not focused on any specific object thanks to the complexity of the scene. Lowfps is not always a problem; although the point at which it becomes a problem is, I'm sure, a subjective measure. But when the entire frame is in motion - such as when panning the camera - the entire frame will have blur. Clearly, the extent to which this is a problem is highly contextual. In a first person shooter the impact may not necessarily be dramatic; much of the "tracking" involves centering an object on-screen such that it is technically unmoving with respect to the display (not unlike Zelda's z-targeting). Tracking an object with the mouse/joystick instead of your eyes neatly sidesteps the problem. More jarring contexts occur with a 3rd person camera which the player is allowed to freely pivot around the player character. Frequently the play of these games involve positioning the camera such that an object is visible, but not necessarily unmoving with respect to the display. Tracking an object with your eye while it moves within the frame, while the entire frame itself is also moving, creates blur upon blur that can be quite offensive to the eye. Another context where heavy "persistence" occurs frequently is with 2D indie games: any time the camera slowly pans across a static scene!

"What makes CRTs so special?"

Here's a simple analogy that roughly models the relationship between a given display and its Hz:

LCD,OLED 60Hz : eyeballs :: 1/60 shutter speed : film LCD,OLED 120Hz : eyeballs :: 1/120 shutter speed : film CRT 60Hz : eyeballs :: 1/1000 shutter speed : film CRT 120Hz : eyeballs :: 1/1000 shutter speed : film

On our modern displays persistence is function of Hz, but only if there's a unique frame per Hz. 30fps on a 60Hz display has persistence functionally equivalent to 30Hz or a 1/30 shutter speed! To get the persistence equivalent to 1/60 shutter on a 60Hz display, we need to be pushing 60fps. Stated from another angle: higher fps requires higher Hz to render, which inherently decreases the effect of persistence. Note: if it wasn't clear by now, CRT is not sample&hold. Note2: if you're curious about plasma's effective "shutter speed", it sits notably slower than CRT, but notably faster than sample&hold. I can't be more specific because I've no idea how to quantify the complicated way in which plasma works into a simple number. Note3: Blur reduction exists for sample&hold displays. The goal is, in the terms of our analogy, to "increase the shutter speed of the display". Unfortunately not all blur reduction implementations actually reach a 1/1000; perhaps manufacturers are afraid of buyers complaining about flicker, or the reduction in brightness.

"30fps is fine because movies are shot in 24fps and they're fine!"

Benefits of lower latency aside, the problem with this argument is that it equates twiddling an analog stick with how a trained director chooses to frame a given scene, and how a trained camera crew follows a given shot. Movies are shot with careful intentionality, with awareness of the confines of the medium. Furthermore, a real world camera can capture temporal information beyond its framerate in the form of blur: simply adjust the shutter speed. By contrast, a videogame is typically rendering instantaneous moments in time, which by itself exacerbates the problem.

[aeliussaionji]

A long-winded reply to my creationist friend

I think it would be helpful to clearly delineate what science is, and what it is not.

What is preposterous to me is that atheists spend so much time, passion and mental energy on "disproving" something....

Why is it easier to believe that a non-personal "process" over long periods time?

Science is not a competing ideology to religion. Science is best thought of as a process. The following is a loose description of the process:

A researcher want to know how something works

The researcher creates a hypothesis (aka a falsifiable guess)

The researcher tries to disprove their own hypothesis by a clearly documented experiment or body of evidence

The researcher submits their work for peer review, in which scientists around the world determine if sound methodology was used in trying to disprove the hypothesis

Scientists around the world repeat the researcher's documented experiment and see if they get the same results

If a hypothesis is disproved, that is still valuable. Knowing the ways in which an idea is disproved is valuable information moving forward. Even if someone goes through all of the above with the hypothesis intact, the findings are still not taken as fact. We want to see other scientists redo the same work (aka replicate the findings). We want to see it used as the foundation for new work. The ultimate goal is to understand the world around us. It is only by this process of careful iterative vetting, of discovering what is true and what is not true, that humans have created computers. An electrical grid which powers our computers. A vast infrastructure to connect all computers together. Vaccines. Antibiotics. Spaceships. Airplanes.

We didn't make computers without being pretty damn familiar with electricity. We didn't make air force bomber jets without knowing a hell of a lot about aerodynamics and propulsion. We didn't design antibiotics without knowing how evolution works.

Our understanding of living creatures is not provided by "foaming at the mouth atheists" spending their days trying to disprove God. We have observed the fossil record of ancient creatures, we have observed living creatures, we have observed microorganisms and bacteria. Using what we learned from these observations, we created medicines to combat bacterial disease. It's unfortunate that many religious people have taken personal offense to the model. But the model, well, "models" all life accurately, and the model has not been falsified. Only when we are absolutely certain of a hypothesis do we graduate it to a "Theory" (ie, working model which is the foundation for newer hypotheses). Evolution is a Theory. Note that scientists use the word Theory differently from the colloquial sense of the word. Colloquially we use "theory" to mean something like what scientists would call a hypothesis. It's like how "incompetent" has a distinctive meaning in law different from common parlance.

That's not to say a Theory is guaranteed fact. The scientific process is about better understanding the world. If a better model comes along, that model will replace the Theory of Evolution. This is unlikely. Why? Because we build knowledge like laying bricks to build a wall. If someone wanted to challenge our understanding of how electricity works, they would have the extraordinary burden of 1.) Providing a falsifiable hypothesis which 2.) Simultaneously explains why the current understanding is inaccurate AND also somehow explains how we managed to build computers without understanding the fundamental workings of the parts involved. It'd be like if someone told you that your childhood memories are false. You would require a lot of information to be convinced: why do I have this scar if the memory of getting the scar isn't real? If my mother isn't real, who did I talk to this morning? How did I get my basic high school education if I didn't go to school? And so on. An extraordinary amount of evidence would be required to overturn your current understanding of your life.

So it goes for evolution. The mystery as to how we created a significant chunk of modern medicine with an inaccurate understanding of the subject matter would need to be explained. This is no small barrier.

Aside: there's a lot of bad science and bad science reporting, and bad science reporters report bad science. If you don't know how to detect that, it can be overwhelming and easy to dismiss the entire affair. Just remember: one study alone doesn't prove anything. Systematic reviews of multiple similar studies and replication studies are what matter. So when the news is talking about "a new study" and it doesn't mention corroborating studies, peer review, if it has been replicated, or if this is a "systematic" or "meta study", then you can probably just ignore the findings. A single unfalsified study is an interesting and plausible idea, but it is far from accepted fact.

The problem that Dawkins faces is: Who designed the "single, simple sheet of light sensitive cells?"

Those evolved too, of course. We don't have a complete record of the history of every step taken in every creature's evolutionary path, but I'm sure with some research you might find more information about how certain cells may have become light sensitive. Anticipating the question "who designed the first cells?", there's actually a very interesting hypothesis for this. Some basic chemical compounds that would have been present on early Earth have the same shape as a simple cell. Over the course of hundreds of thousands of years, these naturally occurring compounds integrated together in such a way that they advanced from simple chemical interactions to a more complicated system. The rest is history! As a person of faith you might say that God designed the universe such that it was inevitable that this process would occur and humans would eventually come about. No one could argue against that.

Which idea really requires more faith?

This is a fair point, but perhaps not in the way you intended it to be. The scientific method pivots on one single point of faith: a faith in our human senses, the faith that our senses are not fundamentally deceiving us. That is the beginning and the end of faith's role in science. We can use what we see, hear, smell, etc, to accurately probe the world around us.

In the context of creationism vs evolution; - The Theory of Evolution is built on a body of evidence, and is in turn built upon in a way that literally created and sustains our healthy modern "first world" society. - Creationism is built on - Faith - A belief in a global conspiracy in which generations of scientists have perfectly crafted a body of evidence to perpetuate a lie to the public, all for unknown reasons.... Or God/Satan have created "false evidence" to test our Faith in [our contemporary interpretation of] one single specific biblical assertion. And that "false evidence" also works as the foundation for medicines, so falling for the "bait" (so to speak) results in better health and prosperity.

Hmm. I think a loving God would want us to develop better medicine, don't you?

It is important to note that Science and Religion are not at war with each other. That would imply intentionality and an agenda. Science has no agenda. It's unfortunate that careful study has resulted in findings which conflict with a certain world-view as presented by the Church, but history is littered with examples of the Church violently opposing certain findings we accept as fact today. Back when the Church wielded great governing power, it was known[1] that the Bible said, clearly and unambiguously, that the Earth was the center of the universe and the Sun travels around the Earth. Astronomers eventually came to the conclusion that this was not true, and they published the Heliocentric (sun-centric) theory of the solar system. In response, the Church labeled such scientists heretics and punished them as they saw fit.

Today, it is known[2] that of course the Bible was misinterpreted, the Bible never actually promoted a Geocentric (Earth-centric) solar system!

[1]https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Geocentrism#For_the_Bible_tells_us_so [2]https://www.gotquestions.org/geocentrism-Bible.html

I suspect that soon it will be "known" that, of course the Bible never actually promoted the idea of Creationism, everyone just misinterpreted it! I'm just glad the Church is (somewhat) less involved in governing affairs for this transition.

Given the Church's colorful history, you can see how I might be uneasy about taking the Bible as literal fact. It may very well be the word of God, but even so, it clearly is subject to very fallible human interpretation. Most religious people I know will readily tell me the Bible is metaphor, stories that guide us and give us inspiration. I think this is a more honest position to hold; it is inevitable that each person will take from the Bible their own personal meaning and unique inspirations. When you insist the Bible is literal fact, you inherently insist that your own personal interpretation of the Bible is literal fact. In doing so, you set yourself up to not only oppose the progression of knowledge on subjects which do not and can not challenge the existence of God, but you also put yourself at odds with other interpretations of biblical writings, isolating yourself from those who otherwise share in the same Faith.

I'd like to reiterate that Science is not at war with Religion. The existence of a God cannot be presented as a falsifiable hypothesis. I've used this term a few times, but let me explicitly define it here: there must be a condition by which a hypothesis can be proven false. Proof and Faith are mutually exclusive concepts. By definition, science can never disprove a God, and anyone who claims otherwise is irresponsible or misinformed. There are many Atheists who are certainly willing to try, but do not confuse those petty squabbles with real scientific work.

[aeliussaionji]

Have some Android apps

A list of Android apps I keep on my phone. This list primarily exists for me to share with friends, and is otherwise pointless. Note that F-Droid apps do not have ads, and are open source. F-Droid is therefore devoid of bloat or spyware or other useless things that plague the Google Play store, and F-Droid is the repo I first search when looking for apps.

I've noted only the widgets I care about. I don't care about most widgets. All of the apps I use either have no ads, or can be removed by purchasing the ad-free version. I tried my best to find apps with true black themes for AMOLED displays. Coming from Windows Mobile, it's strange to me that black themes aren't just inherently in every single app. In fact, on Android black themes even seem unpopular!

The List

AnkiDroid

F-Droid - Google Play

Black theme (enable night mode)

Flashcard app. Truthfully I haven't used this yet, but I used the desktop version in college.

Article Reader

Google Play

Black theme (in articles only, luckily that's where it counts)

Share webpages to this app for future offline reading. Only pictures and text are saved. I use this as my "read it later" list. Sometimes I use it just to extract content from ad-ridden websites: "read but don't save" is a second share target in addition to "save for later".

Audio Recorder

F-Droid

No black theme, only "dark" (grey) theme

Nothing much to say here. A simple app to record audio. I feel this should be a basic feature of all phones, and coming from Windows Mobile I was surprised this is not included with Android.

Calendar (aka Simple Calendar)

F-Droid - Google Play

Black theme (choose dark theme, set custom background color to black)

Simple black transparent widget

Honestly, I haven't set up my calendar on Android yet. I will be using this app more once I do. It's a strange thing that stock Calendar app doesn't have anything other than a blinding white theme.

Call Recorder

F-Droid

No black theme, only "dark" (grey) theme

From the same author as "Audio Recorder". This is yet another basic feature of Windows Mobile that I'm missing on Android. This app can function without root access, but it's very hard to hear the caller. Apparently root access is required to actually record calls properly. I also dislike that all calls are always recorded: on Windows Mobile, there was simply a "record" button on the call screen.

Car Report

F-Droid - Google Play

No black theme, but the dark UI makes significant use of the color black

Record the mileage, gas cost, gas consumtion, etc for your car. Also allows you to record general expenses, and create reminders based on time, distance, or mileage.

Clover -F-Droid

Black theme

If you want an imageboard browser, this is as good as any. Supports webm with audio, does anything I'd ever expect such an app to do.

Custom Navigation Bar

Google Play

Requires some configuration by ADB

This is the app I use to enable persistent "immersive mode". It also allows you to add extra buttons to the navigation bar. I've added a button to mine that toggles "immersive mode", for the few buggy apps which don't behave without it. "Immersive mode" hides the navigation bar (and optionally the status bar), which is useful to prevent the status bar from burning in on the display. I also like the way true fullscreen looks.

DAVdroid

F-Droid - Google Play

Sync your calendar, contacts, and tasks to a personal server.

Edge Gestures

Google Play

The navigation bar is old news. It's too hard to reach on bigger phones and takes of screen real estate. Use gestures from an edge of the screen to control your phone instead.

File Manager (aka Simple File Manager)

F-Droid - Google Play

Black theme (choose dark theme, set custom background color to black)

I bounced between a few file managers before eventually settling on this one. It's slightly uglier than the competition, but it's also very solid, fast, and fully featured. Everything from this developer Simple Mobile Tools is fantastic.

Flym

F-Droid - Google Play

Dark theme

RSS readers on android have not been kind to me. I was using the FOSS app Feeder for quite a while, but the dev is not in a hurry to implement full text article retrieval. Flym got a recent mid-2018 major revamp, and it has all the features I want but it just doesn't feel as lightweight as Feeder. It also seems a bit less reliable in its background updater, and I really dislike the UI page separation of Unread / All items. I'll probably return to Feeder if the dev starts working on it again.

ForRunners

The current stable version is rather broken, I'm running a beta build for version 1.2.x. Since the working version isn't readily available, I won't share links.

A little more than basic FOSS app for recording your run/bike/whathaveyou. It's the only FOSS option I could find.

Gallery (aka Simple Gallery)

F-Droid - Google Play

Black theme (choose dark theme, set custom background color to black)

Another entry from Simple Mobile Tools. I tried to use the built in google photos, but it's just so bad. It's confusingly laid out, it's confusing when you're trying to have folders and it keeps making virtual albums that don't necessarily correspond to folders. It's confusing to tell which folder / album you're currently in. And worst sin of all: when invoked from another app, the back button does not exit+return to previous app. No, that makes too much sense for google photos. I also have issues with playing videos via google photos for some reason. I digress. Gallery is great! It does exactly what it should, and even has an extra feature to hide your porn. It even has a built in editor with basic functions like "crop". Gasp! Can google photos crop? No. No it can't. Fuck google photos. Update: I have been informed google photos can in fact crop. The confusingly hidden location was revealed to me. I still hate it.

K-9 Mail

F-Droid - Google Play

Black theme

Widget is a simple small unread counter

GMail and Outlook don't even have dark themes, let alone black. K-9 is great... once you've gone through the trouble of configuring it. Configuration is tedious. On the plus side, it can probably do anything you'd ever want to do with email. Back up that config.

KISS Launcher

F-Droid - Google Play

Transparent themes

For all the hype about "Android lets you change your home app to whatever you want!", most of the launchers are exactly the same idea with implemented with varying degrees of competence. Every launcher is some variation on: paginated left/right scrolling + an App drawer. What about scrolling vertically? Why does scrolling have to be paginated? Well, KISS completely bucks this paradigm and does something entirely new. KISS is just a list of my recently used apps/contacts + favorites bar. I love it.

Loop Habit Tracker

F-Droid - Google Play

Black theme

Simple black transparent widget

A simple app where you log your progress in forming new habits. For example, I'm trying to read more. If I've read today, I tap the widget I've created for my "read" habit. Within the app this data is used to generate graphs from the collected data.

Materialistic

F-Droid - Google Play

Black theme

Hacker news reader.

Media Merger

F-Droid - Google Play

This is a background process which helps deal with Android's hideous trend of permanent, unchangeable folder creation. It monitors selected folders for files. If files are found, they are moved to the preconfigured destination folder. I use this to move pictures from various apps into the Pictures folder. Where they belong. Fight me, every android dev.

MuPDF

F-Droid - Google Play

No black theme, but it sort of doesn't matter

I wanted a PDF reader that wasn't google drive. This one works well. Yay.

NewPipe

F-Droid

Black theme

This is a YouTube client that supports background playback for just audio, and supports playing videos in a tiny window over other apps. Basically, it has all the YouTube Red features. It's a bit clunky for me, but this has the potential to replace the official YouTube app.

Notes (aka Simple Notes)

F-Droid - Google Play

Black theme (choose dark theme, set custom background color to black)

Another entry from Simple Mobile Tools. I've had really bad luck with typing into web pages and apps. Not even just on phones, on the computer too. I've lost a wall of text wayyyy too many times. If I'm going to type more than a line, I'm going to type it in a dedicated app that will not lose what I've typed even if the app or the phone crashes. Here's a good app for that.

OpenScale

F-Droid - Google Play

Dark theme

I'm a fatty, trying to lose weight. Logging my weight data in here gives me a nice graph to track my progress.

Password Store

F-Droid - Google Play

No black theme

Password manager for use with pass.

Peace of Mind+

F-Droid - Google Play

Enable "Do Not Disturb" mode for set periods of time, after which the ringer is enabled again.

Podcast Republic

Google Play

Black theme

Like RSS readers, Android has a dearth of good podcast apps. Podcast Republic is the least worst podcast app I could find, and the playlist management here is still insane. The good news is that, while the developers did not respond to my email, my two talking points were addressed in the very next update. Coincidence? Maybe. Maybe they'll listen to me if I send them another email about making playlists not stupid. Other than issues with playlists, this app is rock solid and does everything you'd ever need a podcast app to do.

QKSMS

F-Droid - Google Play

Black theme

Stock Google messenger uploads your SMS to some server somewhere, so I dumped it. QKSMS seems to have had a reboot/revival in 2018. This new version is solidly stable, pleasant to use and has all the basic features one would expect in SMS/MMS.

QuickDic

F-Droid - Google Play

Dark theme

An offline dictionary. Quickly reference words and phrases. An example phrase I was surprised to find in this app was "Halcyon days".

Scrambled Exif

F-Droid - Google Play

This app works in-line with the share menu. The function is to strip exif data from images for further sharing. The original image is not touched, instead a temporary image is created and the share menu is reopened which acts upon this temporary image.

Share via HTTP

F-Droid - Google Play

Share files to this app, and they will be hosted via HTTP server. A simple and effective way of moving files to another device.

Slide for Reddit

F-Droid - Google Play

Black theme

I actually don't remember why the official Reddit app offended me. I think I just got tired of seeing ads or recommended posts and subreddits. Slide is a good replacement.

Stitchcraft

Google Play

No black theme

An app to stitch screenshots together into one picture. Also adds a "take screenshot" button to the tiles above the Android notification center, something I really like since I find the pwr+voldown button combo tedious. This app comes in both ad-supported and paid. I've linked to the paid version above.

Turbo Client

Google Play

No black theme, only dark (grey)

Contributes to the hideous trend of permanent, unchangeable folder creation

Transfers files over SCP/SFTP with easy UI. Shockingly, I can find no other competent Android apps for this. Fat-fingering scp in Termux is not a solution.

Twidere

F-Droid - Google Play

Black theme

Transparent theme!

I got sick of Twitter showing me promoted tweets and ads. This is better than the official Twitter app, with the caveat that it does not yet organize replies into neat threads the way Twitter does, nor does it have the "popular things you missed" section that Twitter sometimes shows you. Otherwise, great app. One other thing you should know: notifications for retweets and likes are limited to the official Twitter app. Luckily, Twidere can pretend to be the official real deal, but it requires a little know-how on your part.

Updated 2018-08-20

Added and removed some items.

[aeliussaionji]

Controlled Folder Access

I recently found this by accident: . It's a new feature for Windows 10, where your personal files are made read-only to all programs not in the allow list. The intent is primarily to fight cryptoviruses: the virus may be on your machine, but it can't encrypt read-only files.

A similar concept for Linux: .

I turned this feature on, played a game for 3 hours, and then lost all progress in said game because it did not have write-access to my Documents folder. D'oh! That's something to remember: be aware of where games (and programs) are storing saves and configuration files. You will get a popup notification when a process is blocked, but you will not see it in a fullscreen game. Use to look up where games saves and configs are located.

Configuring

Open Windows Defender Security Center

Navigate to Virus & threat protection

Open Virus & threat protection settings

Scroll down to Controlled folder access.

Here you can turn the feature on as well as manage the list of protected folders, and allowed processes. Unfortunately, you are not able to remove any of the default entries.

Sensible Allow List

Controlled folder access means serious business. It appears the only process allowed by default is explorer.exe, despite that not being listed. Several processes built into Windows 10 are not allowed, inhibiting certain features. I will update and maintain the following list of my personal exclusions.

Xbox DVR

C:\Windows\ImmersiveControlPanel\SystemSettings.exe

C:\Windows\System32\bcastdvr.exe

C:\Windows\System32\GamePanel.exe

Xbox App: View Screenshots & Videos

C:\Windows\System32\RuntimeBroker.exe

GoG Galaxy: cloud save service

C:\ProgramData\GOG.com\Galaxy\redists\GalaxyCommunication.exe

WindowsApps: Allow saving files in protected folders

C:\Windows\System32\PickerHost.exe

[aeliussaionji]

Vertical Waste

Behold: the conventional setup on most Windows devices.

Let's check out a popular site using a popular browser!

Cool dog. I'm going to save this picture.

Something isn't right. All the content on this website is presented as a narrow vertical feed, and yet my UI is obscuring a large portion of my monitor's vertical space. Meanwhile, off to the right there's just... nothing. This isn't just an isolated case with reddit- in fact I'd argue that most websites today are designed for a portrait oriented mobile device. Come to think of it, widescreen monitors haven't even been around that long: the internet has a long history of being viewed through the 4:3 aspect ratio. The better websites can dynamically adjust to make efficient use of given space, but the web arguably prefers the portrait experience and never fully embraced the widescreen ratios our monitors use today. Would it not make more sense for our UI elements to capitalize on that unused width? I think so.

I've been using this setup for several years now. This feels right. I can see more of the web page, and there's still enough unused horizontal space to display a wider picture of doggos. Downloads are neatly stowed in a popup box, as opposed to the chromium download bar (which must be manually dismissed!).

Moving these UI elements off to the side benefits not only the content of the web, but it's also a more functional layout of the UI itself. I've opened 30+ tabs in each configuration to demonstrate.

With the vertical arrangement of the tabbar, I can see more of the twitter front page, there's less blank space, and I can read the title of each tab I have open. The conventional arrangement, on the other hand, is clearly less functional. The tab bar is too compressed to display any useful information and twitter loses some content while gaining thicker margins. The same principle applies to the Windows taskbar: you can fit more running programs in the taskbar while still retaining readable window titles.

Ups and Downs

It's almost universally true that we engage with the internet vertically. Websites scroll up and down, not side to side. Mice have vertical scrolling wheels. Keyboards have PageUp, PageDown, Home (jump to the top), and End (jump to the bottom). Clearly, we're used to operating around this fundamental truth. Then why, oh why, does conventional UI go out of its way to occupy that precious vertical space? If we engage with our content vertically, wouldn't it make sense to maximize the amount of vertical space available for use? What's more confounding about these design choices is that the wider our displays get, the more relatively scarce vertical space becomes, while the unused horizontal space is larger than ever.

For your Consideration

I leave you with a screenshot of Chrome (with the bookmarks toolbar enabled this time) on . Highlighted in yellow is the user interface, fully consuming 1/3 of the 1080 vertical pixels. The massive, floating, always-visible, titlebar on imgur makes me sad.

[aeliussaionji]

Kinesthetic IO

video { display: block; margin: 0 auto; max-width: 100% !important; height: auto !important; } img { display: block; margin: 0 auto; max-width: 100% !important; height: auto !important; }

Overview

I firmly believe that good game design necessitates communicating to the player what actions they can and can't take at a given moment. I'm no professional, but I would think this is a fundamental concept in all UI design. Let's take a look at how your computer might relay information to you in a window.

Shown here, three items are "greyed out". It's pretty clear that the user cannot interact with these objects which they usually interact with. This is communicating to the user that they cannot perform those specific actions at this time. This is a simple, unobtrusive tactic which goes a long way to enhancing the user experience. Consider what this dialog would be like if it didn't communicate these settings are unavailable; the user would interact with these buttons and become frustrated at the apparent mismatch between input and output. I clearly changed the settings, why am I not seeing the effect of the changes?

The above image also visually indicates via rectangle selection that keyboard input is available, and which item is currently selected in the keyboard context. Good design!

This idea in gaming

Communicating what actions are available to the user makes a game feel responsive and fluid. Let's dive right into an example.

In the above video of Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight, I demonstrate rolling. In effect, this is an action which moves you quickly in a specific direction. Even though you are not controlling this yourself, I bet you could tell me exactly when the roll button will work, and when it won't. You can't roll while you're already rolling, so it makes logical, intuitive sense that the roll action will be unavailable until the character has stopped rolling. The rolling animation is what communicates to the player that they cannot just mash the roll button to quickly skip across long distances.

Here above is a demonstration of the in-air dash/dodge. This too is rate-limited; the button will not have an effect if pressed multiple times in quick succession. However, the exact moment when dash becomes available again is visually communicated by a bright flash and expanding circle around your character. The game communicates to you the exact moment when you may use dash again, allowing you to time your input accordingly.

Now let's look at Hyper Light Drifter.

I am mashing the dash button as fast as I can, repeatedly, for the entire duration of this video. There is clearly a rate limit after a sequence of three dashes, but there is no visual, audible, or haptic (vibration) feedback for this at all. This creates uncertainty; if I only dash twice successively, how long must I wait before I'm allowed to do multiple successive dashes again? The answers can be found by rote memorization, but this is inelegant and unintuitive. Furthermore, if you seek through this video frame-by-frame you won't find a frame where it is clear one dash has ended and a successive one may begin. Dashing remains unavailable a moment or so after the previous dash's animation has ended, each blending into the other with no clear delineation.

These factors contribute to a feeling of finicky unresponsiveness, and worse, it makes me feel like the dodge ability is unreliable in a pinch. A similar problem exists with your primary attack.

Me vs Strawman

It is true that over time, you will naturally learn to 'feel out' the conditions and timings of a system like Hyper Light Drifter's. However, one's ability to adapt to the problem doesn't place it above reproach. In HLD's defense, there is an argument to be made that imperfect controls are in line with the game's theme. I'm not writing this to pass judgement on HLD, though- it just happens to be that I played it around the same time I played Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight, and the two systems were begging to be contrasted.

[aeliussaionji]

Living Blog

Today I revised one of my older, more poorly written reviews. It occurs to me that "posts" on the internet are legitimately a form of historical record- they represent a past me, writing in a past context. Under certain circumstances, revising history could be seen as dishonest; going into a historical record to change things I have said is, in a sense, falsifying said historical record.

On the other hand, to readers, anything I have written is a reflection of me. Blog posts are not meant to be read like a linear book. I suspect most readers will stumble across individual posts, and that compartmentalized snippet of text is all they will see of me.

I want my blog to represent my ideas as they are. If I no longer hold a certain view, I will update the post to reflect my current thinking (if I remember to, anyway). If I feel I failed to clearly express myself in an older post, I will bring it up to my current standards.

Consider this blog a living document- each post is subject to change as my views and writing skills evolve. Sometimes I will append updates to the bottom of a post, other times I will rewrite it completely. That being said! I am tracking each post through git. The full history of any edits I make to any post will be recorded here: https://github.com/AeliusSaionji/blog. I hope those concerned will find this strategy agreeable.

[aeliussaionji]

Manga and Webcomics on e-readers

I recently discovered Project Gutenberg, which has inspired me to dust off my Nook Simple Touch Glowlight and load it up with reading material. Once I downloaded every title I recognized, I turned my attention to comics and manga. Many e-readers do not support cbz, unfortunately, which has given rise to a number of projects that convert your manga into epub (or whatever Amazon's proprietary format is).

In years past I used Manga to ePub to get the job done, but I was never impressed by that program. The next program I found, Kindle Comic Converter looks better and is still maintained, but unfortunately I encountered a show stopping problem. The developer did agree to fix this at some point in the future, but this was not my only problem with KCC. Its ePub files could not be opened by zathura, and this snippet of text generally does not fill me with confidence in the software.

Criticisms aside, the whole process of storing images in an ePub is clearly just overcomplicated, and there only exist a few small programs to do this. I hate it when my workflow relies on a single rickety and obscure program. I need to find a simpler solution. The nook's stock reader doesn't give me much to work with: as far as I know, my only options are ePub and PDF.

I set aside my anti-PDF bias for a moment and discovered that ImageMagick can just output to PDF. This isn't quite the end of the journey, as the nook's downscaling algorithm causes significant aliasing. After reading the IM manpage about resizing images and running through a few trials, I settled on this command:

convert *.png -filter Lanczos -resize 515x715 output.pdf

Assuming *.png expands to your list of images. My nook's resolution is 600x800, but it doesn't allow you to configure margins for PDF documents; I guestimated the actual display area and used that for the PDF page dimensions. Note that the output in output.pdf becomes the document's metadata title.

There you have it; a simple, reliable, and mature, no-nonsense process to get comics into an e-reader.

Alternatively, you could root your nook and use an android 2.1 app which supports cbz. I couldn't find one that worked with the hardware buttons, but I do intend to contact the developer of ComicsReader to see if we can fix that.

Update 2017/02/11

As of several days ago, not only has the KCC dev solved the nook problem, now generated ePub files are valid enough for zathura to open. These fixes are found in the dev branch at the time of writing.

Update 2017/03/04

At the end of the day, the best answer is to find a way to just use the right format, and avoid conversion. On that note, I looked into buying a new e-reader, but unfortunately the latest lineups from big name products (kindle, nook, kobo) are crap! If the battery life is good, it doesn't support any formats. If it supports a range of formats, it needs to be charged every night. Pathetic storage space with no option to expand via SD, and all incredibly overpriced. It honestly looks my current (rooted) Nook is the best available e-reader!

Tangent aside, I want a way to just open cbz on the nook. ComicsReader will only remember your position for the most recently opened file, which is not good enough. FBReaderJ does extend support as far back as Android 1.6, but not for its comic (cbz) plugin. ACV to the rescue. It won't respond to the nook's physical buttons, but it's perfect in every other aspect- including, of course, high quality downscale.

[aeliussaionji]

Libnotify from udev

I've been searching for a long time, and I finally figured out how to generate a libnotify event from a udev rule without hardcoding the username into the rule or script. The answer is actually pretty simple, and I'm very surprised I couldn't find the answer on any wiki or forum.

There was this ArchWiki entry which is no help at all. The author seemed to think you could insert a $USER variable into here "once you understand the example". What? If your generic example contains hardcoded elements it's a horrible example! /vent

Moving on.

I thought I might be able to use this blog's tutorial on how to start systemd services from udev for my purposes, but that quickly got very complicated and confusing. It took me an embarrasingly long time to realize this approach still requires a hardcoded username implemented somewhere. Womp womp.

I got the basic framework for my solution with the help of hackaday. They still hardcode the user, but thinking about what they did here caused me to arrive at the solution.

In their for loop, they iterate through every instance of their notification daemon. While I was cleaning up their useless use of grep, I wondered what that for loop actually accomplishes; are they expecting to have more than one instance of their notification daemon running? That doesn't make sense. My notification daemon of choice, dunst, doesn't even let you run it more than once per user. At which point it occurred to me, if this script is run as root, I can repurpose this for loop to iterate the search for a notification daemon through logged in users! I had to look up the who command as I had never seen it before, and from here the problem is solved. I no longer need to figure out which users to run notify-send as, I run it for every logged in user. Which makes sense for hardware events- all logged in users should be getting these notifications.

Now if only I could find a way to not hardcode the notification daemon.

/usr/local/bin/power_notify

#!/bin/sh # Display a notification for each logged in user user_notify() { users=$(who | awk '{print $1}') for user in $users; do # find DBUS session bus pid=$(pgrep -u $user dunst) export DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS=$(sed -z -e '/DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS/!d' \ -e 's/DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS=//' /proc/$pid/environ) su -c - $user "$@" done } # udev 99-lowbat.rules case "$1" in "low") user_notify "notify-send -u normal 'Low Battery'" ;; "critical") user_notify "notify-send -u critical 'Low Battery' 'Find power soon!'" ;; "suspend") user_notify "notify-send -u critical 'Suspend Imminent' 'The system is going down in two minutes!'" sleep 120 systemctl suspend ;; "hibernate") echo "not implemented" ;; esac

/etc/udev/rules.d/99-lowbat.rules

SUBSYSTEM=="power_supply", KERNEL=="BAT0", ATTR{capacity}=="2[05]", ATTR{status}=="Discharging", RUN+="/usr/local/bin/power_notify low" SUBSYSTEM=="power_supply", KERNEL=="BAT0", ATTR{capacity}=="1[05]", ATTR{status}=="Discharging", RUN+="/usr/local/bin/power_notify critical" SUBSYSTEM=="power_supply", KERNEL=="BAT0", ATTR{capacity}=="[0-9]", ATTR{status}=="Discharging", RUN+="/usr/local/bin/power_notify suspend"

[aeliussaionji]

LxVim + msysVim

I use vim as my main editor, and on Windows I usually install GVim. Vim can make use of curl and git to update plugins, so I need to have those on Windows as well.

Typically, I’d install msys2 to provide my Windows install with ssh, curl, git, rsync, etc. However, now that Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL/LXSS) exists, I figured I’d give that a spin.

The only problem is that GVim for Windows cannot easily make use of the git and curl Linux binaries tucked away in the WSL. So, I set off to see if I could just use Vim from WSL. I can! I no longer need to install msys2 or GVim.

I may not stick with this solution- the clipboard register doesn’t work, and the Windows cmd terminal might not be ideal. Time will tell.

https://github.com/AeliusSaionji/LxVim

Update 2016/11/29

Well, I didn't really get along with WSL. I might return to it in the future, but for the time being I am using msys2. I have my binaries on PATH and the clipboard register works in vim; these things are well worth installing msys2 for. I've adapted my script to fit msys2's vim, and created a batch file with which I can associate file extensions. Enjoy!

https://github.com/AeliusSaionji/msysVim

[aeliussaionji]

HTML Fragments

I’ll update this post with whatever code I frequently use across this blog; mostly for my own benefit and poor memory.

Code used to display... code. <pre><code>CODE HERE</code></pre> works, but syntax highlighting is nicer.

<link rel="stylesheet" href="//cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/highlight.js/9.5.0/styles/obsidian.min.css"><script src="//cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/highlight.js/9.5.0/highlight.min.js"></script><script>hljs.initHighlightingOnLoad();</script><pre><code> CODE HERE </code></pre>

Source: https://highlightjs.org

Update: I've actually just added this to my theme- it will automatically apply to any code blocks.

This bit of CSS makes videos 'responsive'; resizing to fit available width.

<style>video { width: 100% !important; height: auto !important; } </style>

And this html is for embedding a video. Nothing special.

<video loop controls> <source src="url" type="video/mp4"> </video>

[aeliussaionji]

Windows, SSH, UAC, & Sudo

The sub-optimal

► OpenSSH's sshd can be installed under Windows through cygwin, or through a various number of unmaintained standalone cygwin ports (all of which seem to have stopped working with Windows 8 and up, or merely do not work within a user/admin context). It also requires that you create a new user account specifically for it; it's all very messy and hack-ish. If you do manage to get it to work, what have you actually achieved? Remote access to an administrative account, under cygwin, in a non optimal terminal. That may be good enough for some, but not for me.

► PowerShell's WinRM is meant for an enterprise/corporate context. The configuration is obtuse and convoluted, as is the process to actually initiate a remote session. Although I did get it to work at one point, whenever I asked for help setting it up, the usual response from ##PowerShell@freenode was "oh, you're not on a domain? Good luck with that." Another sticking point with WinRM is that it requires a client-side administrative PowerShell terminal! SSH doesn't require superuser; I'm having a hard time rationalizing why WinRM does.

The optimal

Luckily, I found the perfect sshd: Bitvise SSH Server. This has been around for a while, but for whatever reason it took me a few years to find it. Not open source, but it is free for personal use, and it is the only sane option (until perhaps Windows 10 gets native ssh). This is sshd for Windows done right:

Installs as a service, no extra users are created.

Is 100% UAC compliant and UAC conscious. All settings comprehend the idea of privilege separation and work with it.

Appears to be capable of literally anything you might do with SSH on Linux: virtual users, virtual paths, configurations for days.

Well organized and coherent UI, complete with logging and statistics.

Terminal elevation

OK, I've gushed over Bitvise enough. I have a clean solution for sshd on Windows, but that alone isn't enough. As everyone should, I have a regular user (Link) and a separate admin account (root). It's a bad idea to expose your root account over sshd, but since the Windows' sudo equivalent (UAC elevation dialog) is exclusive to the GUI, there is no simple way a regular user can remotely execute commands that require administrative access. I did discover it is possible to create a credential object in PowerShell, with which you may run processes as the admin user. The method is tedious to say the least, and as best I can tell, none of the processes are going to be connected to your terminal session. You will not see any output from any of the processes; it's a one-way lane.

Maybe I'm a bit daft, but just today it occurred to me that instead of disabling ssh access to root, I could simply restrict access to localhost. It's not quite sudo, it's more like su; even so, this is the answer I’ve been looking for! It's clean, it's easy, it's safe, and it's familiar. Simply "ssh root@127.0.0.1". Now, I can truly administer Windows machines from a remote terminal. I will update this post (or perhaps write a new one) with specific instructions for how to set this up. For now, here is a brief overview of what you need to do:

Configure "Client address rules" for your root user in Bitvise. These rules are processed sequentially. You'll want to have one rule to disallow logins from any IP, and a second rule to allow logins from 127.0.0.1

You need a terminal based ssh client to initiate the ssh connection, obviously.

[aeliussaionji]

Valkyria Chronicles [Review]

This is not a strategy game. It starts out pretending to be one, but that illusion is shattered after the first few missions. The gameplay from there on is miserable. I started having a good time when I started save scumming. There is definitely one correct way to approach each challenge, and past the first few levels it's never "strategy". You can try to use strategy, you might even win, but missions can easily be half an hour long when you don't take the one correct approach, and losing half an hour of progress like that made me really bitter- particularly if the RNG decided to test your patience. I may have felt differently if there were checkpoints- at least on some levels, you could conceivably play "fairly" and have a proper, engaging challenge, but the time-cost of losing is just too high for that to be rewarding.

Here are but a few complaints (the ones I can remember at the time of writing)

RNG applies to grenades. Sometimes, a grenade kills everyone. Sometimes, shoving a grenade up one enemy's cornhole does literally 0 damage.

The RNG is really strange, and not affected by distance or weapon type (not nearly to the extent it should be, at least). Snipers, tanks, rocket launchers? Flip a coin, it will either hit or miss, it does not matter how close or far away you are, your odds of landing the hit don't really change all that much. The enemy AI seems to be aware of this and it is not uncommon for your sniper to miss, but for the enemy tank at the other end of the friggin map to headshot your sniper out of a distant watchtower WITH A MISSILE. It was funny the first time. It's less funny each time it happens.

Headshots apply to missiles/rocket launchers, because of course you can shrug off a missile to the leg!

Actually a common theme in this game is "arbitrary logic", it's hard for you to operate strategically when you can't anticipate how things are going to behave.

Speaking of unpredictability, here is an example- multiple allies can participate in an attack, if they have line of sight and are near enough, and if they're not snipers/rocketlauncherguys. And also if the RNG decides they should. It's infuriating when you SHOULD be getting that supporting fire, but you didn't, and the enemy is still alive, and they single handedly kill everyone. Similarly, your characters automatically fire upon nearby enemies (not snipers/rocketlaunchers)... if the enemy goes into their extremely narrow line of sight.... and if the RNG decides they should. I often would place units in positions I needed defended, only to have the enemy waltz over without interruption. Welp, he just oneshotted the story-essential tank, Game over!

Clearly seeing the enemy down your scope doesn't mean the trajectory of the projectile is clear. When the shooting animation starts, you might find that your character's gun is actually in the wall (or other nearby object).

I started out on the PS3 version years back, never finished the game. At the time, I didn't know you could save scum (let alone save at all mid battle). Bought the PC version upon release. I played this at 120fps and the game looks stunning. Tanks used to have severe collision issues at 120fps, but that was (mostly? entirely?) patched out. I'm not actually sure what bugs were framerate and what bugs are just inherit to the game. Even with the patch, whatever isn't pre-rendered has out of sync audio. It's not deal breaking.

There are a few moments in a few levels where you might benefit from switching to 30fps- I can't remember if this was patched out, but there was one level where driving your tank up an incline would consume more than twice as many movement points than normal. 120fps will cost you a few wasted turns there. All pre rendered cutscenes are 30fps at some god awful resolution. I just beat the game, and the mission before the final boss has a ramp that no soldier can cross at 120fps. You must limit the framerate to 30fps to traverse that ramp. You are required to cross that ramp to beat the level. That said, most of the gameplay can be done at your desired resolution and framerate, and it looks spectacular.

The story is pretty cringeworthy, but I'm a sucker for this particular brand of bad; I find it endearing. It's true that there is no depth, but on the other hand, as silly as the characters are, there are actually characters. The camera angle is 3rd person shooter style- up close and personal. Each character is visually unique, and comes with their own voice actor, lines, and personality. You'll love some, and hate others. This will affect your decisions about who to send out into danger, and who you panick over when they need to be evacuated from the field (downed characters will permanently die if the enemy touches them, and if you don't get to them by the next turn or so). The combat system and gameplay would be great, if it weren't so terrible!

I find this approach to be much more effective than xcom's: a very zoomed out camera doesn't let you see your units too well. They're just ants with very little to distinguish individuals, and I had no emotional reaction when one of them died except, "wow there goes a lot of time and resources I spent leveling him up".

And, well, despite xcom being the objectively better game, I dropped xcom and finished Valkyria Chronicles.

This game has pretty high "highs" and very low "lows".

[aeliussaionji]

How MobileNations lost my trust

MobileNations is a collection of sites for the different cell phone operating systems. I mostly participated in the WindowsCentral community; after spending a considerable amount of time there, I left the forums because... let’s just say I didn’t feel it was a productive use of my time.

I generally had no problem with the content of WindowsCentral as a news outlet, but I drifted away from that too because not a lot has been happening with WindowsPhone and most of the articles started targeting the lesser technically inclined with frequent “how to do [basic function of the phone]”.

Checked out an article recently and what do I find? They provide a URL that is implied to link to Microsoft, a trusted source. It actually sends you through tradedoubler, an advertising agency.

Larger image

In the attached picture I highlight the download link which purports to link to “the Windows Store”, and the red outline demonstrates where the link actually points. I would expect this behavior from the scummiest leeches of the internet “news” outlets. I guess it’s time to consider MobileNations to be one of those scummy “news” outlets. I actually have questions about the legality of this- is it not fraudulent? There is no indication that the link goes through an advertising agency, and most people won’t notice and the context is intentionally misleading. I’m sure MobileNations makes money from the redirect, and this is a breach of user privacy that I certainly did not consent to.

The article in question:

Update: The site mspoweruser.com does this as well. I spoke with one of the editors of that site and learned tradedoubler in of itself is not bad; it's an "affiliate link", and it tells microsoft which news outlets are generating traffic, and I think MS pays the outlets proportionately from the data tradedoubler collects. I'm still firmly in the camp that this is scummy, lying behavior, though; all I ask is that they denote that this is an affiliate link. Posing this as a direct link to a trusted company is phishing.

[aeliussaionji]

How I Dropped Adobe Flash

Disclaimer - I only ever used flash for video streaming sites. If you actually rely on flash based web apps, the only thing I can suggest is to try downloading the swf and running it in MPC-HC. Disclaimer 2 - Nothing revolutionary here; I'm actually describing some very popular software. However, I managed to overlook this for a very long time despite trying to find basically exactly this. I think it's more well known in the Linux community and doesn't come across the radar of Windows users, despite being cross platform. If I overlooked this, I'm sure others have too, so I'm writing this for them.

Here's the rub: the program named youtube-dl (which supports more than youtube, full list here http://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/supportedsites.html) extracts the location of the video file from any given web page and passes it off to a video player. The list of supported sites contains which providers youtube-dl can understand- but any given site can embed content from these providers. In fact, in my experience 9/10 porn sites not on the supported list get their videos from a site that IS supported. At first I was impressed with how often it worked, now I'm more surprised when it doesn't.

Download http://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/ I like to put it somewhere on PATH

Download http://mpv.srsfckn.biz/ Extract to the same folder as youtube-dl.exe This player eats youtube-dl to gain its powers

Install Firefox or Chrome extension to facilitate use Create an "open with mpv"

Done. When a site has video content, click "open with mpv". If mpv opens, you're in business! If it doesn't open, youtube-dl doesn't like your site. It's possible to use youtube-dl with your video player of choice, but that's more complicated. It's much easier to just read mpv's documentation and submit to it :)

Oh, and be sure to check for youtube-dl updates from time to time. Sites change, youtube-dl updates to keep supporting them.

Worth noting- you can open YouTube playlists in this way, and opening a YouTube profile page will play all videos from the account, starting with the most recently uploaded.

Update 2016/11/21

The chrome extension no longer works and I know of no replacement.

[aeliussaionji]

Windows 10 Review [gripes]

I had been loosely following the Insider preview of 10- not really using the OS, but keeping it up to date, looking at all the bugs, then turning it off again moments later. Having poked my head in every once and a while since the beginning of the Insider program, I had a rough idea of how buggy the system was and the pace at which development progressed. The release date of 10 seemed early. Very early. My original plan was to install 10 a month after launch, but ##windows@freenode thought it would be fine- I don’t know why I thought their guess about the quality of the launch version would be more accurate than mine. Come launch day, between my impatience to acclimate myself to the new OS and the reassurances of strangers on the internet that it would probably be fine, I went ahead and installed it on two of my devices. tl;dr I should have waited. It’s pretty buggy at the moment, several things have gotten worse and there’s not much improved over 8.1 to offset these two problems. The general impression I’m getting is that Windows10 a) regressed a lot of 8′s better (but unpopular) ideas so that b) more people would be willing to adopt and thus be on board with the new rolling release update system.

I won’t bore you with the various issues I had to work past to actually get 10 installed and activated. I’m not going to tell you about all the minor facets of the UI I dislike. I know that in due time I’ll get used to the new UI, and I don’t want to write anything for my smug future self to look back on patronizingly, “oh I used to think that? How quaint.” For those reasons I’m going to keep the UI complaints to a minimum.

OneDrive integration is now “less confusing” to the average user, and also completely useless. Where previously you had file and folder sync granularity, now you are forced to choose entire folders to sync, from a UI that doesn’t tell you the contents of any folder. This will come at a huge disk space penalty, unless I reorganize and micromanage the folder structure. Adding and removing folders is no longer easy, it’s hidden in a menu with an arduous to use UI- select your folders from this expanding list using a small, unresizable parent box!

Speaking of small, unresizable boxes and useful things made useless: the “All Apps” interface. The vocal Windows userbase has made it quite clear that familiarity is more important than improvements and any attempt to innovate will be met with fierce resistance- but on the other hand MS still needs to make the UI touch friendly. This outcome was inevitable. I hope you’re happy. The problem with familiarity here is that the Start Menu was never actually any good. It started out as an expanding multi-layered list, often expanding to cover the cough full screen. It was a labyrinth and you could lose several layers of navigation progress with one wrong movement of the cursor. Enter Vista: it’s easy to see that they were trying to solve the “whoops lost my place now I have to start over” issue of the earlier Start Menu (and also solve the issue of not being able to see everything on lower resolution displays). However, the way they chose to do this is unfortunate: by constraining a list that expands horizontally AND vertically in a small box that can’t be resized. Navigating means scrolling vertically and horizontally, and this usually meant tedious scroll-bar dragging. Luckily, Vista also introduced the ability to search start menu items, so we didn’t have to actually use the accursed interface, which remained unchanged in the next iteration of Windows: 7. Windows 8 changed the apps list to once again fill the screen, and have what is known as a “flat” folder display (no nesting). This is a clearly superior approach to all previous iterations of the Start Menu, but the implementation lacked a few necessary UI cues. Rather than offer constructive criticism to improve the new approach, the userbase collectively decided that they would rather continue with the crappy UI they were used to. To 10′s credit, they did get rid of horizontal scrolling, but if you have a nest more than one layer deep you won’t actually be able to read any given file name, and the big, touch friendly UI means you’ll be doing twice as much vertical scrolling to compensate for the lack of horizontal scrolling... which is why no one will ever use it, ever. Useless.

Recimg.exe is gone and there doesn’t appear to be an equivalent replacement. On a related note, Reset in 10 doesn’t actually work right (at the time of writing). Windows.old is for some reason relied upon by system processes and so the Reset function creates a dirty, dirty incomplete install that parasitically feasts on the intestines of the previous install. To recap: Windows 10 got rid of/broke the excellent Refresh and Reset features 8 introduced. Brilliant!

I use the desktop slideshow feature. I enjoyed rotating my wallpapers every 3 minutes. Arbitrary limitation #1: Windows 10 only gives you intervals of 1 minute and 10 minutes. I hope this is a binary pun and they’re going to restore the other options soon. Whatever happened to just typing the number of minutes you wanted? Gah, computers and phones get dumber every year.

Speaking of the desktop slideshow, every time the wallpaper changes, on both of the PCs I put 10 on, my input freezes. My mouse and keyboard become unresponsive for a second or so while the pretty wallpaper transition occurs.

Another random bug: you can hit Ctrl+Shift+Enter to launch any given program as Administrator from the Start Menu. Just not regedit.exe.

Arbitrary limitation #2: what happened to my Win+F file search keyboard shortcut?

The start menu is resizable. Hey, that’s pretty neat! Arbitrary limitation #3: you can’t resize it to fill the screen. I can’t understand this logic.

The touch keyboard is now harder to hide: previously, the popup menu had a “hide keyboard” option that was directly under your finger when the menu popped up, so you could double tap an area to hide the keyboard. Now it’s gone, so you have to precision tap the tiny X close button.

But wait, there’s a fullscreen setting! Still though, why wouldn’t you just let us resize it to fill the screen? Why the hidden setting? Here’s why: the layout of the Start Menu changes slightly when fullscreen is enabled. What does it do with this extra screen real estate, you ask? It hides a bunch of useful things behind a hamburger menu. Because logic.

This last gripe is extremely minor and I’ll probably have gotten over it by the time I publish this, but when the taskbar is in a vertical orientation, the various associated animations move across the screen excessively. shrug everyone has their own weird minor quirk.

Arbitrary limitation #4: Virtual keyboard button can’t be moved and has been moved to the other side of the system tray, where you aren’t allowed to place toolbars. The excellent http://www.lovesummertrue.com/touchmousepointer/en-us/index.html now can no longer sit neatly next to the virtual keyboard icon.

Arbitrary limitation #5: you can’t enroll a fingerprint without creating a pin code. Why is this, exactly?

10 removed the ‘run or raise’ logic from the start menu. That is, a program would be brought to the front if it were already running. If you wanted to run a new instance of the program, you had to shift+enter. Now it will always run a new instance.

Last, I hope this is specific to my gaming rig, but project64 crashes 10 without so much as a BSOD! PC just reboots. Wonderful.

On top of that, explorer has generally felt bumpy and prone to microfreezes here and there. It reminds me of DPC latency issues, but it’s not that since it happens specifically as I interact with certain explorer elements. I hope they address the bugs soon. I do enjoy the new explorer (but FreeCommander is still better), the new start menu is OK all things told (but the “Apps List” can fuck right off), native FLAC and MKV support is nice but won’t stop me from installing all my usual 3rd party players (and no FLAC/MKV support on OneDrive; you can’t stream your library just yet). Windowed apps as opposed to fullscreen is great, but this feature was enabled by third party developers on 8 the other year. Tablet mode is a good start, but I don’t own or intend to own a tablet. I could keep going, but you can see why I’m not particularly impressed with 10: near every good change is tempered and not really ground breaking or worth upgrading my OS to get. I will say the new window managing approach is good enough where I’ll not need to install one of my usual 3rd party programs, the core calendar/mail/etc apps are a bit better than their 8 counterparts, and the Game integration feature is pretty neat.

Update

Fixed the vast majority of microfreezes, turns out Windows Update was grabbing bad drivers that needed to be manually removed and replaced. I’m still having DPC latency issues, though. I’m also having issues with streaming to twitch.