leashade

[leashade]

sunshowers

Let sunshowers wash away your sorrows, Face solar winds, they blow away the pain. Don't lose the faith, stay there, the current follows. Forget the guilt, leave everything in vain.

The bitter secret you hid in hollows Underneath the quilt will leave the stain.

What used to blossom left to wilt, And withered, what is left was silt Displacing soil. With nothing left to yield At once, you leave the cropless field to urges you restrain.

With ocean flares and rainy rays Returning back what's lost, Be void your reward, on soils of flaming moist. The forge of ice will form the heart's new ways.

So many sparks, too many things to miss, And pictures branded in your mental locket. You can no longer have her bliss If it belongs in someone else's pocket.

[leashade]

Brutalism is when there’s concrete. The more conk they crete, the more brutalismer it is.

[leashade]

john wick holding shadow the hedgehog like mary holding baby jesus

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I wonder if all problems would go away if I disappeared.

An anchor is good when you want to set sail, not when you want to move further. Otherwise the anchor just holds you back.

[leashade]

I wanted a really weird xmas gift as a kid

My father bought a PC before I even went to school, I think. And it was a fascinating piece of tech to me. It was incredible and almighty, I think experiencing a childhood with a PC really formed my interests, personality and the future as a whole.

My PC time was limited, but I ended up calculating the time I have to use the PC before anybody else comes home. I used to turn it off about 10-15 mins before anyone would get home, so the monitor would cool off after being used.

And to be able to cover my tracks even better, I started looking into how Windows worked, what I could do with PC and how I could hide my presence.

We didn't have many PC games at this point, and I wouldn't get into programming until about 4 years later (when I've got my hands on my first programming book). But there were still cool things I could do without the games and programming.

So at some point I naturally wanted to get... Floppy discettes on Christmas. The 3.5" ones, 1.44 MB.

And I actuall got them! But the box with the discs was almost instatly taken by my father, who actually used them. I only had my hands on a single disc out of 20 (but even this last one was eventually used by my father as well).

And many years later, before moving to the big city, I "hid" two floppy discs in a safe spot (which was my book-like case for CD/DVD discs): one 3.5" disc and one 5" disc. I'm not even sure these discs worked, but I still wanted to preserve them as a sort of souvenir.

Eventually, after many years, all my stuff from my home town got to our new place in Moscow. I found these CD/DVD book cases , but was never able to find the floppies.

After rememberin this story, I rushed to check Ozon (Russian Amazon) to see if there's an option to buy floppy discs. And there are indeed options! You can even buy a pack of 5" discs. Though I wouldn't probably buy them as the prices make it not worth it (especially since they won't be used for anything effectively). There's even a compact USB Floppy Drive on sale. Not really surprising, but still fascinating.

[leashade]

And speaking more about Sonic

I am absolutely in love with Sonic Frontiers.

It's kind of a weird game. In the past couple of years I kind of got more into the Blue Blur games and started trying to recommend Sonic games to other people. And in the process I realized that I don't even know what games to suggest.

Like, there are Sonic Adventure, Sonic Adventure 2, Sonic Heroes. They are great, but bugged as all hell and pretty old. They are not for everyone, not all people are used to the old games jank.

Maybe Unleashed or Colors? Well you have to find a way to play them first. And they are not really the game I would go for the Sonic Vibe.

Classic games? Maybe 3&K, but even then it's a bit questionable.

So every time I end up suggesting Mania, Generations and... Frontiers.

Frontiers feels like it should not work. It looks like an empty tech demo made in Unreal Engine. It doesn't look fun. That is until you play it. All of a sudden, once you actually start playing the game, it doesn't feel as empty and janky and ugly anymore. It really feels like a Sonic Adventure game, but modern. It's fun and addicting, it has THE vibe and it's just a perfect entry point for newer players.

The game starts to look like a foundation for the future of the franchise. But it also still plays pretty well.

Which is why I don't feel bad recommending it to every single person. It really is a great game.

...oh and also the Final Horizon update is DAMN hard, but also very fun because of that

[leashade]

My Roman Empire is the story about Sonic the Hedgehog 2 development

Sonic 2 was supposed to be a game with 16 different zones and time travel plot, but because of time constraints (and other issues too, but time problems is not unusual for Sega) the game was left with a simpler structure, changed plot and only the most promising levels.

But all the cut levels were still shown in various media. And many years later one of the levels was "remade" in the remake/remaster, and other zones were found along with the original concepts and stuff.

This video is great at showing what happened during development, what was lost and what was found/restored now (and the story behind it).

There is also a fascinating fan rom hack "Sonic 2 Archives", which aims to recreate the originally planned version of Sonic 2, along with all these cut zones.

And as a bonus, here's another video on this topic, taking the Zone IDs into account and looking at music specifically

[leashade]

about nostalgia and the old internet

During one of my nostalgia episodes I decided to check on jabber.ru and stuff.

Way back in the day (early 2000s) ICQ was a pretty popular messanger in Russia and other post-USSR countries. And ICQ was using the same protocol as AOL IM (and ICQ was owned by AOL at the time too).

But nobody here used the official ICQ client as it sucked way too much. People used unofficial mobile client Jimm mobile instead. And also used a piece of software called QIP -- a multi protocol messanging app.

At some point other protocols (MRIM aka Mail.ru Instant Messaging and XMPP/Jabber) started gaining popularity. At some point I found out about XMPP and its clients. QIP became an XMPP app at some point, even forcing users to create a "QIP account", providing people with their own XMPP instance.

And on mobile I used Bombus (a very popular J2ME XMPP client) and then BombusMod. XMPP also supported "transports", basically providing "portals" into other protocols and adding "special" gateway contacts to your contacts list. So from your perspective as a user you were just using Jabber as usual, but had all your ICQ, MRIM and Skype contacts all in one place (this is exactly what I did).

But that wasn't all. I also used to join all sorts of group chats (or "conferences" in XMPP terms, usually about Linux, tech and programming), as well as some IRC channels (connecting them as "conferences" via transport in my Jabber account). And this was how I found a lot of people I'm still in touch with today.

There was also a hot new thing I found out about back in 2009 -- Juick.com. It was basically a "twitter for nerds", where all interactions happened via a special Jabber bot, using special commands. If you didn't use any commands and just wrote anything to this bot, it became a new blog post.

While it was trying to be a "twitter clone", characters limit was 2048 bytes. So people went wild here, telling all sorts of stories about politics, life and even writing a sort of roleplay sci-fi story.

Eventually some complicated events led to downfall of Juick in ~2011, and then the tech moved on. Jabber/XMPP and ICQ silently died, being replaced by social networks and their messaging apps. People started using Facebook, VK, Instagram, Twitter and later on Telegram for messaging, group chats, communities and blogs. And in this new world most of these old communities and technologies kinda died. Well, not DIED, but were basically forgotten by the majority of people.

...

Nowadays most of these apps and projects don't even have a functioning website. Many of the projects didn't survive the paradigm shift and the start of the smartphone era. OSCAR and XMPP protocols became kind of relics of the past, old and hard to support, without many modern features (seemingly).

ICQ was eventually bought by Mail.ru, who then merged with VK. Later down the road ICQ was "reborn", but it didn't have anything that the original had, and turned into a yet another messanging app. MRIM was forgotten. Jabber was a niche thing to begin with, though it's still used in corporate networks AFAIK.

Nowadays it's really hard to find any decent Jabber client apps even. There's a BombusMod build for Android, and it's the best you can find, even though it wasn't really made for touchscreens. Everything else is either made for corporate networks or has terrible UX/UI.

There's also Miranda NG for Windows. And also Pidgin and Telepathy for Linux. All three support all modern protocols and standarts, even support Telegram! And even Psi+ still exists, even though it's a jabbber only app. But still -- they exist!

But it's kinda wild to think about. All this jabber-juick-icq nonsense was the center of my world throughout my teenage years. Everyone around me -- young and old -- used ICQ, advanced users used Jabber. I was using Juick and was active and many conference chats until about 2012-2013.

And now there is nothing left from any of it.

Sites of the projects turned to nothing. The actual apps are not supported for many years now. And even the standards were seemingly forgotten. People kind of went different ways since then, and the world has changed. The only thing left from all this old "world" is the memories in the minds of people who were there.

I found my old Juick blog, and my last post here had a timestamp starting with "1 decade ago". And when I was active on Juick, it lasted for AT LEAST five years.

Funny how the time flies and how things that mattered the most to you yesterday don't mean jack shit today. In the end, nobody will remember any of it, and everything will turn to dust, leaving nothing behind.

...it's such a russian thing it seems -- starting a 2 hours long lecture to convey a single thought

[leashade]

saw a tweet of a very sad 4chan thread, where a guy told a story of him being always busy at work and unable to go to spend xmas holidays, but one time he was able to, he was told "sorry, we won't be celebrating xmas this year, too much going on". And then he saw photos of xmas celebration on his mother's snapchat -- and everyone was there. Except him. The stories were removed and his parents tried to call him (and they were the ones who called everybody and decided not to call him) to apologize.

This situation is heartbreaking. And it also reminded me winter holidays in 2020. I had a Netflix subscription back in the day, and wanted to watch a brand new xmas movie "Klaus" with others. Told my sister about it, prepared everything, just so we would all watch this movie as a family together.

And on the next day (we didn't watch the movie yet) I went out to meet with my friend who lives ~20 min ride from me. Once I came back home, they already finished watching Klaus. I only saw the final scene and the credits.

I haven't seen the movie myself until this January -- after I told about this situation to Jane and she insisted that we should watch Klaus together. And so we did, on orthodox xmas night.

I don't think they did that on purpose (probably), but it was still rather upsetting. And generally speaking I had this impression that my family, regardless of what they say, doesn't really want to see me during family gatherings or whatever else. Of course, when something was wrong, it was usually just a coincidence (this year it was especially unfortunate, when I had to cancel my trip home at the last moment and was unable to come for three months pretty much). And I don't want to hold a grudge against anybody. But still, every time something like this happens it feels upsetting. Feels like nobody expects me at any sort of "celebration", whether it's family or not.

But this Klaus situation was the most upsetting, yeah.

[leashade]

about internet censorship

Speaking of internet censorship and such (this post was originally written in ru, september 2023)

Not so long ago (well, at this point it happened multiple times already...) there were test blocks of some VPN protocols (...and some of them are alredy blocked for good). It was clear that even though there was no announcement (and no official laws/acts passed, and it's actually illegal to block full protocols like that, but anyway), after some test runs they will start blocking VPN protocols as a whole (and they actually do that now). A lot depends on iternet providers of course: cellular operators are, as always, first to implement any blocks, then goes RosTelecom, but some smaller providers might not have the means to implement the blocks or sometimes even "forget" about the need to block anything.

But VPN as a technology wasn't really about bypassing intenet censorship, it was about virtual networks. And it seems like VPNs working fully inside of Ru and on Ru servers are not blocked. But if the node is located outside of the country, then connections will be broken: e.g. TCP OpenVPN connections will be failing after the first couple of packages sent, UDP OpenVPN fails to connect, even though outgoing packages are successfully being delivered, Wireguard and IKEv2 can't finish the handshake and hang on the last stages of initialization. (ShadowSocks seems to be blocked as well, though there are means to bypass the blocks AFAIK, but I don't know the exact ways to do that).

For me VPN was a way to securely connect to my servers' network first, then provide a safe way to connect my devices in different cities second (e.g. I used it to connect to my home PC in Moscow from Saint Petersburg, ignoring internet provider's NAT).

Lack of such secure connection to an inner network is significant issue for privacy and security. Of course, home internet providers are not the first to implement such shit, but risk of all the work halting just because some imbecile woke up thinking "yup, that's a great day to block an entire internet protocol" (or even multiple) is insanely high. So I had to start looking for ways to solve the problem -- good thing I already saw some helpful articles about the matter before.

I was using Wireguard and OpenVPN as my primary protocols before (they are widely supported and well documented), and right before the first protocol blocking tests I finished setting up IPSec/IKE. All three of these protocols are successfully being blocked (and it's not a huge surprise, none of them is designed for bypassing censorship).

Solutions were found thanks to Chinese friends: ShadowSocks and XRay/XTLS. First is basically a proxy, which is masking internet traffic and doesn't let DPI to detect it on internet provider level (well, they managed to start blocking this protocol too). XTLS is basically the same, but with a more advanced config (it actually uses SS under the hood, it seems), which can also specify, which data goes through proxy and which goes directly. Instructions can be found on GitHub, and everything in the process is more or less straight forward. There is also GoodbyeDPI, but it only helps bypassing DPI and every instruction I've seen required rooted phone.

The biggest question about ShadowSocks: is it possible to use it as a proxy for OpenVPN? The answer is actually yes. You can start SS in local proxy mode and in OpenVPN config add socks_proxy 127.0.0.1 1080, after that all traffic will go to ShadowSocks first, secure channel works perfectly, everything is great. I didn't try to do the same on PC, but in theory it works the same way so you just have to select the correct virtual network adapter.

With XTLS I didn't go that deep yet, but it's interesting for tinkering and adjusting everything for your needs. And seems like it can also work as a proxy (already used it a couple of times to be able to work in difficult conditions).

[leashade]

about degrading content

I told it multiple times before and will say it again here: I don't like where the content is going these days. It feels like it turned into a giant stream of stuff, which nobody asked for or cares about.

On one hand we have YouTube, which can be used by anyone, so it kinda turns into an endless well of content and knowledge (this is also why any YouTube competitors are doomed to fail and why any attempts to block and censor it won't go well: it might work, but the losses will be much MUCH bigger). This, combined with algorithms creates a situation when a user gets overwhelmed by content, which you can't even consume in a lifetime. Every single person and their dog has a channel, podcast, show or whatever.

But if it would be just YT it would be fine. The platform is diverse enough and content is made by people. It balances itself.

The problems start when big corporations start to do the same.

We have Netflix, a very successful streaming platform. But to keep it at the top they "have" to pump out a lot of exclusive content and lure people in -- offer something of value so it would make sense to pay.

Content costs money, and creating content all the time burns through your money rather quickly, so you have to get rid of expensive stuff and stuff that didn't perform too well.

But even better approach is to just create an endless stream of shit which people will watch once and forget it ever existed. You can even play with modern trends or whatever, make a nice looking preview, etc.

And platforms like YT and Netflix had a giant advantage: they didn't have competitors, not really. YT doesn't really have a real replacement, and Netflix was the first successful streaming service (to the point when people would use the name as a verb meaning "watch something on TV"). You could find a giant supply of great shows using just one subscription.

But now every big studio has their own streaming service, and this kind of defeats the whole purpose, why Netflix became so popular in the first place.

Now you have 10 streaming services with their own exclusive content, and nobody wants to pay for every single subscription at once. But they all still want to stay afloat -- and it's really expensive.

So we have Disney+. The Mouse has their own streaming and started releasing a lot of unnecessary and empty content in big batches, one after another. Marvel Cinematic Universe movies turned from important cultural events to yet another shitty thing, overwhelming people and oversaturating the market with low quality content. It becomes too much, you can't watch all these shows, and most of them are not even worth it. All the nostalgia baits, remakes, reshoots and reuses of the old franchises are all there too.

And all this subscription system turned into the giant evil monster which makes this problem even worse. I wrote about movies and shows, but it applies to podcasts, videos, books and videogames too.

The biggest problem: important cultural events and modern classics just blend in with the endless conveyor of stuff. Today you get something new and forget whatever was yesterday, then you get another tomorrow. Social discussion about a project ends without even starting. You just get so many things coming out that they lose all their importance and meaning.

"Classics" and "cultural phenomenons" didn't really disappear, but they just get lost with whatever is out there, the "classics" just becomes a part of this content soup.

Why am I saying all this and what's my suggestion? Dude, I don't know, absolutely no idea. But I really don't like it.

[leashade]

i wish i could know how to deal with this feeling of being tired of existing

more and more often i feel like i just want to not exist anymore, but also i don't really care about it anymore, i just feel indifferent

[leashade]

me: why are the pillows always so fucked up

my cat:

[leashade]

living in rsia is using shelter to hide all apps with personal information just in case authorities will check your phone

it's constantly thinking about the words you use and keeping in mind that some of them might be used for monitoring for potential cases

and it's anxiously checking your old blog posts in the night, looking for something that might be used to imprison you

you know, just in case

[leashade]

40 Questions (2023 edition)

Answering these 40 questions for the first time.

https://github.com/kepano/40-questions

What did you do this year that you’d never done before?

Traveled to a different country to get a visa and also travelled to new continents.

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions?

I don't even remember my resolutions for 2023 honestly. But I am alive, it's already an achievement.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

Almost.

4. Did anyone close to you die?

Not yet.

5. What cities/states/countries did you visit?

Seattle, USA. Jakarta, Indonesia.

6. What would you like to have next year that you lacked this year?

This year was so packed with events, that I'm more afraid that I won't be able to meet the same level of expectations.

7. What date(s) from this year will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

Last week of October, it felt magical.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Got to work at The International 2023 on-site in Seattle.

9. What was your biggest failure?

Not really my failure, but still: contract with Valve was terminated because of Tundra.

10. What other hardships did you face?

Hard to fit all the cool ideas in terms of time

11. Did you suffer illness or injury?

Nope.

12. What was the best thing you bought?

Laptop/PC upgrade, I think? I didn’t have the access to my PC for a while, and this laptop essentially replaced my PC altogether.

To a point when my PC is just standing here unused for a couple of months now, because I just don’t have time to do something about it, and don’t really need to do anything about it for now.

13. Whose behavior merited celebration?

Not sure what the question means exactly, but what Sheepo and other talents did for me this year was spectacular.

14. Whose behavior made you appalled?

A certain pro org’s CEO.

15. Where did most of your money go?

Tech upgrades and food.

16. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

Going to TI12.

17. What song will always remind you of this year?

kendall :3 – Blue Shift

18. Compared to this time last year, are you: happier or sadder? Thinner or fatter? Richer or poorer?

Happier, about the same, definitely richer, but also with way more expenses.

19. What do you wish you’d done more of?

More travelling and socializing, more work. I feel like I could’ve done more, but don’t do enough.

20. What do you wish you’d done less of?

Procrastinating and worrying about stuff.

21. How are you spending the holidays?

Not sure yet.

22. Did you fall in love this year?

No, it happened before.

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?

No.

24. What was your favorite show?

Kinda hard to say.

Out of everything I watched this year… Probably House of Dragon actually.

UPDATE FROM FUTURE ME: Just finished Loki (Season 2) and now THAT's my favorite show of 2023.

25. What was the best book you read?

Didn’t really spend that much time reading, and most stuff didn’t really make that strong of an impression.

Asimov’s “Naked Sun”, I guess?

26. What was your greatest musical discovery of the year?

Ermmm… Taylor Swift, I guess? Everything else was kinda discovered beforehand.

27. What was your favorite film?

The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent

28. What was your favorite meal?

Nothing out of the ordinary. At least can’t remember.

29. What did you want and get?

Going to TI12.

30. What did you want and not get?

…nothing?

I’ve got everything I wanted, but also I didn’t really want that much to begin with. And I also don’t remember many things.

31. What did you do on your birthday?

I don't remember. Probably working.

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

It’s good enough as it is.

33. How would you describe your personal fashion this year?

Regular dude, I guess? Nothing that looks good or stands out.

34. What kept you sane?

Doing cool things.

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you admire the most?

Nobody really.

36. What political issue stirred you the most?

The same one from the last year.

37. Who did you miss?

Not sure, nobody comes to mind.

38. Who was the best new person you met?

Mary, Chase and Brian. And, well, many more, but these three are the best.

39. What valuable life lesson did you learn this year?

If you act hard, do your best and treat people well, things will get right back at you eventually.

40. What is a quote that sums up your year?

…idk

[leashade]

My impression of Seattle, being here and in USA in general for the first time: it's a nice place, but prices and safety are a big concern.

It doesn't feel safe to take a walk in the evening or even sit in my hotel lobby at night. Also nobody warned me about the prices.

That said, I kinda like this city. Didn't go to any of the most famous landmarks of the city yet, but found some new friends here who showed me the place and it feels great to explore the place with them.

[leashade]

So... Oshi No Ko was a disappointment.

People hyped it up a lot, but just like with Kaguya-sama it felt very underwhelming. I'm not entirely sure if it's the original writing or the adaptation, but the writing felt horrible in the way it created pacing and told character backstories by dumping the exposition with flashbacks and needless explanations.

Also it's pretty clear when they are trying to save money for the next "banger scene". This got to somewhat extreme during eposodes 10 and 11, which became somewhat like glorified slideshows. This was rather annoying.

I also expected more emphasis on songs and sound design side of things, considering it's an idol story, but aside from banger OP/ED, there is practically NOTHING to listen to.

From what I know, there is a lot of wordplay lost in translation, and also past the events of season 1 the story gets more intriguing in the manga. But for now it felt pretty underwhelming to watch.