#Github Party

[tomorrowusa]

It was a record shattering week at ActBlue – the site which raises money for Democratic candidates, causes, and charities.

Since autumn of 2020 Ryan Murphy at GitHub has been tracking donations to ActBlue. The most money previously given to ActBlue had previously been during the seven days starting 27 September 2020. Last week ActBlue raised $252,517,168. All but the first 13 hours and 46 minutes of that was after Joe Biden stepped aside and Kamala Harris became the presumptive Democratic nominee.

Not ALL of the money raised at ActBlue was specifically for the Harris campaign. But comparison with the previous week (beginning 14 July 2024) shows that Kamala-Mania was a HŪGE factor.

July 14th - July 20th: $61,349,601

July 21th - July 27th: $252,517,168

US: Kamala Harris campaign raises $200 million in one week

The presumptive nomination of Vice President Kamala Harris to run for the Democratic Party in November's presidential election continues to make waves in US politics. The Harris campaign team said on Sunday that in her first week since President Joe Biden dropped out of the race, and the party coalesced around her, the candidate raised over $200 million (€184 million) in donations. "In the week since we got started, Kamala Harris has raised $200 million dollars. 66% of that is from new donors. We've signed up 170,000 new volunteers," Harris' deputy campaign manager, Rob Flaherty, posted on X, formerly Twitter.

^^^ emphasis added

Keep in mind that Elon Putz has pledged $45 million a month to pro-MAGA PACs – i.e. $225 million. Trump is soliciting $1 billion from oil execs. Far right Silicon Valley tech oligarchs like Peter Thiel are also getting involved financially with Trump.

So there's no time to rest on our accomplishments. Freedom is not free and we need to continue to offer our own volunteer and financial support to pro-democracy candidates like Kamala Harris.

In 2020 there was a stretch when ActBlue took in over $100 million for eight weeks in a row. That's part of what it took to evict Trump from the White House. A similar effort will be needed this year to keep him out.

BTW, visit Ryan Murphy's ActBlue tracker. It's updated every 10 minutes.

ActBlue Ticker Tracker / Ryan Murphy | Observable

[queenlua]

lmao (from this CTF writeup):

The final step, emitting the target language, which is nowadays often NOT C, is our greatest weakness in 2024. A new generation of engineers and systems folk have discovered the fruits of Chris Lattner's labor and staked their claim on today's software landscape. Unfortunately for reverse engineers, we continue to deal with the Cambrian explosion in binary diversity without commensurate improvements in tools. We eat shit reading worsening pseudo-C approximations of things that are not C. This problem will probably not get solved in the near future. There is no market for a high-quality Rust decompiler. First, no one writes exploits or malware in languages like Rust or Haskell. Unlike C/C++/Obj-C, the Rust/Haskell/etc ecosystems are predominantly open-source further decreasing the need for reverse engineering. Lastly, improved source control and ready availability of managed enterprise services (i.e. GitHub) make first-party loss of source code much rarer nowadays. So like, no one really cares about decompiling Rust other than unfortunate CTF players. Golang is a notable exception. Golang is like, the language for writing malware--great standard library, good cross-platform support, brain-dead easy concurrency, easy cross-compilation, fully static linking, and design with junior programmers in mind. You could shit out a Golang SSH worm in like 200 LoC crushing carts and ketamine no problem. People worry about AGI Skynet hacking the Pentagon to trigger a nuclear holocaust but really it's more gonna be like eastern European dudes rippin' it with some hella gang weed ChatGPT ransomware. So maybe we'll get a good Golang decompiler first?

[grimmcodes]

Tutoriel Installation 🛠️⚙️🔧

Je vois que certaines personnes galèrent avec la mise en place du thème que j'ai partagé (notamment pour héberger le css). Alors voici un tutoriel d'installation pas à pas, avec captures d'écran, pour vous permettre de le mettre en place correctement 💗 ⚠️ Pour rappel, le Blank Theme dispose de ses propres explications, que vous retrouverez juste ici. ⚠️ Veillez à bien avoir configuré votre forum comme l'indique le Blank Theme juste ici. ⚠️ Le forum doit impérativement être en version ModernBB.

1️⃣Pour mettre en place tes templates.

Nous allons commencer par copier les templates depuis le github. Ici, ce sont les différentes parties d'HTML qui nous intéressent.

Nous allons progressivement les coller dans les diverses sections de forumactif (voir screen ci-dessous). 📌Exemple ici avec le template images_list que je vais copier depuis le github : 📁HTML (templates) > 📁general >📄images_list.

Et coller dans le template images_list de forumactif.

Les noms des HTML sont exactement les mêmes du github vers forumactif donc vous ne pouvez pas vous tromper. Vous avez juste à copier d'un côté et coller de l'autre, en n'oubliant pas à chaque fois de sauvegarder à droite en cliquant sur le symbole disquette💾(ouais, j'vais rentrer dans les détails à ce point).

Quand l'ensemble de tes HTML ont été copiés et collés correctement (général, poster & messages privés, profil), tu vas pouvoir passer à l'hébergement de tes divers CSS.

2️⃣Pour enregistrer ton css afin de l'héberger.

Je t'invite à aller sur le github mais dans la section CSS cette fois-ci. L'ensemble des CSS devront être enregistrés sur ton ordinateur puis hébergés en dehors de forumactif car ils sont trop longs. 📁 CSS > 📄CSS_global

Tu peux copier le code et le coller dans un logiciel qui permet d'éditer du code. Pour moi, ce logiciel sera Notepad++, parce que j'aime me faire du mal, mais sachez qu'il existe aussi SublimeText. Ces logiciels sont gratuits ✅ et indispensables pour pouvoir enregistrer vos feuilles en format .css (comme on le ferait pour une image en format .png ou .jpg quoi).

Quand j'ai copié mon css depuis github et que je l'ai collé dans mon logiciel d'édition de code, je n'ai plus qu'à lui donner un petit nom en sauvegardant (chez moi ça sera CSS_global) et à l'enregistrer en .css (Cascade Style Sheets File).

3️⃣Pour héberger ton css en dehors de forumactif après l'avoir enregistré sur ton ordinateur.

Ca y est, à cette étape, tu as normalement l'ensemble de tes CSS (global, instagram, messenger, page d'accueil etc...) d'enregistrés individuellement sur ton ordinateur. Tu peux désormais aller les héberger en dehors de forumactif. Pour cela, j'utilise personnellement Archive Host (parce que j'aime vraiment me faire du mal) mais, tu peux très bien utiliser Dropbox. Il te suffit juste de créer ton compte. Tu arriveras ensuite sur une page où tu pourras ajouter tes fichiers et les stocker dans un dossier. J'aime que mes documents soient rangés donc, je te conseille de créer un répertoire et de l'appeler par le nom de ton forum (comme ça, si t'en as plusieurs, impossible de te tromper !).

C'est ici que je vais y ranger mes feuilles de CSS préalablement enregistrées. Je clique sur ➕Ajouter des fichiers puis sur ⬆️Démarrer l'envoi quand j'y ai ajouté ceux que je voulais.

Ca y est ! Ta feuille de CSS est désormais hébergée. Mais ce n'est pas terminé. Il faut maintenant relier ton forum à cette feuille. Et pour cela, rien de plus simple :

En survolant ta feuille de CSS avec ta souris, une flèche va apparaître en haut à droite ⬇️, clique dessus puis sur 🟦 Informations et Codes.

Cette fenêtre va s'ouvrir. Je t'invite à cliquer sur l'URL à côté de Principal et de la copier. C'est le lien de ta feuille depuis Archive Host. Tu vas ensuite aller la coller dans ton overall_header sur forumactif. Mais pas n'importe où !

Ici, les URL vers mes feuilles de CSS sont collées les unes après les autres juste en dessous de <!-- CSS Externes -- > ET sous cette forme : <link href="URL ARCHIVE HOST ICI" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" charset="utf-8"> Il faut absolument que ces feuilles se trouvent avant la balise </head>. Tu verras, dans le code HTML de l'overall_header (à la ligne 20) j'ai laissé cet endroit vide, tu auras juste à les coller en dessous.

N'oublies pas de sauvegarder ! Et voilà. C'est tout. Rien de plus simple 💗 Cela te demande juste d'installer un logiciel d'éditeur de code (gratuit) et de te faire un compte sur Archive Host ou Dropbox (gratuit aussi). Si là encore vous êtes paumés.és (parce que ce n'est pas impossible malgré les screens et explications pas à pas), n'hésitez pas à m'envoyer un petit mp. 🌈

[thedatarogue]

All D&D 5E Spells, in one place

Hello, D&D players!

Are you tired of having to go through multiple books, pdf files or third-party websites just to find the one spell you're looking for? Don't want to pay hundreds of dollars to be able to access all the spells in DND Beyond?

Well, I've got just the thing for you.

In this Github repository, I've uploaded a dataset with information on all of the 5E spells (inside the datasets folder). The README file has all the information you need to use it, along with some other stuff.

If you have any problems using these assets, feel free to contact me either through here or Github. I'm thinking of adding pictures to the guide on Github, but it might be a while before I do that.

If the link isn't working, just remove the https://href.li/? part and you should be good.

Happy travels, adventurers.

[equipe]

Notes de mise à jour

🌟 Nouveautés

Les URL Tumblr présentes dans les réactions deviennent à présent des liens fonctionnels avec lesquels il est possible d'interagir.

Si l'info vous avait échappé, les réactions se voient également dotées de fils de commentaires indentés.

Les administrateurs de communauté peuvent maintenant exclure des membres. Contrairement à l'expulsion qui est temporaire, l'exclusion empêche les membres de revenir dans la communauté et de la consulter.

L'API de la fonction Communautés est désormais ouverte aux développeurs tiers via l'API publique de Tumblr. Consultez régulièrement notre documentation sur GitHub (en anglais uniquement) pour vous tenir informé des derniers ajouts.

🛠️ Correctifs

Correction d'un bug qui pouvait compliquer la lecture de longs textes alternatifs sur le Web. Veuillez garder à l'esprit qu'un Alt doit avant tout être une description concise d'une image (comme si vous deviez la décrire à quelqu'un au téléphone), l'objectif étant de favoriser l'accessibilité du contenu de votre billet aux utilisateurs dotés d'un lecteur d'écran.

Correction d'une anomalie sur le Web qui pouvait empêcher d'ajouter un bloc "Afficher davantage" dans la partie haute des billets.

🚧 En cours

Les utilisateurs de l'application Android se trouvent dans l'incapacité de bloquer les questions anonymes. Cette action peut néanmoins être réalisée à partir du Web, et ce, dans l'attente d'un correctif à venir dans les prochains jours.

🌱 Prochainement

Nos équipes planchent toujours sur de nouvelles fonctionnalités destinées aux communautés.

Nous concoctons également un tout nouvel avantage pour nos abonnés Premium. Affaire à suivre ! 😉

Vous rencontrez un problème ? Consultez les problèmes connus ou écrivez-nous (en anglais) et nous reviendrons vers vous aussi vite que possible.

Vous souhaitez nous faire part de vos commentaires ? Rendez-nous visite sur le blog Work in Progress et participez aux discussions de la Communauté (en anglais).

Vous désirez soutenir financièrement Tumblr ? Laissez-vous tenter par un abonnement Premium et jetez un œil à notre badge Mécène Tumblr directement sur TumblrMart.

[satoshi-mochida]

Persona 1 Phone Game, ‘Persona: Anomalous Tower Chronicle’ Receives English Fan Translation

From Noisy Pixel

Several Persona fans have united to release an English fan translation for the highly obscure Persona mobile game Persona: Anomalous Tower Chronicle. This 2006 title is a spinoff of sorts of the original Persona, Megami Ibunroku Persona, and it’s a gameplay-heavy experience with not much story to speak of.

Players form a party of four to navigate a tower and acquire orbs in order to reach the structure’s roof. The battle system should be familiar to those who have already played the first Persona. Interestingly, this game was made officially accessible in Japan in September 2023 via G-MODE for Steam and Nintendo Switch. So, it’s neat to see that accessibility made it even more convenient for prospective Western players, thanks to the efforts of dedicated fans.

You can view the credits for this fan translation project below, and yes, these are all verbatim:

Graphics Editing – agarpac

Main Translator; Beta Tester; First to Beat the Game – Gabriulio

Project Originator – Kaisaan

Title Logo/Banner Editing  – Laventory

Game Hacking; Work on the Patcher – MKCA

Steam Deck Tester – Alexandra IDV

Lurker – Apollo

Lurker – Bread__Guy

Hyped Supporter; Game Mechanics Analysis – Ginger

Translation Fixes – Hee-Ho

Steam Deck Tester – Hiro

Lurker – Jonker Kujo

Survey Participant – Kularian

Lurked; Asker of Dumb Questions – Lemonov

Tester; Bug Catcher – Lorenzo

Steam Deck Tester – Mordexai

Lurker – Not_a_bear

Tester – Quantum_Dog

Survey Participant – SkyRaiderG7

Lurker �� Toppis

Could Not Beat the First Boss – Vanessa

Special Thanks

JTR

For help in sifting through Chinese esoteric and literary knowledge in pursuit of better translation.

Kaisaan

For starting the project and getting the team together.

Quantum_Dog

For letting us headquarter on his Discord server.

You can access and download the English fan translation of Persona: Anomalous Tower Chronicle via GitHub and purchase the game itself via Steam.

The following note is also significant:

PSP Translation Differences

While this translation follows the official English localization of Shin Megami Tensei: Persona for PlayStation Portable, some deliberate changes have been made. A document listing the differences is available here.

Lastly, Quantum Dog and Alexandra_IDV shared a message on Twitter for those intending to play this fan-translated title on Steam Deck.

[ueberdemnebelmeer]

i've been thinking about this post

ever since i came across it because it bugs me so much ghjdfgd so many of the extensions listed there are redundant, either because they do each other's job or their functions have been implemented natively in firefox + the less extensions, the better! it's less surface area available for "attack"

i recommend the electronic frontier foundation's cover your tracks tool to check how well you're protected against web trackers (as for fingerprinting, i know brave combats canvas fingerprinting via filter lists - like firefox - and by randomizing a user's fingerprint, but it's a chromium browser. canvas blockers tend to impact usability. for day-to-day use you might just want to reduce data available to fingerprints, because to avoid that altogether i'm afraid you're better off using tor)

i'm going through the list above after the read more; i'm no expert, i've just spent a lot of my free time looking into how to improve my privacy and security habits and this is what my brain retained + don't believe me because i say so + feel free to point out any mistakes of mine.

🟩 keep

ublock origin. filter lists you should consider adding:

check Privacy > AdGuard URL Tracking Protection

add Actually Legitimate URL Shortener Tool (explained how here)

check out the arkenfox project's github page too!

🟨 optional

sponsorblock (1) & unhook (2) for yt. i personally don't use either because (1) i'm good with the good old dragging the current time indicator past sponsorship sections and (2) i'm also good at ignoring page elements i don't care about, but that's me obvs.

facebook container (& not listed above but multi-account containers too; differences between the two: x, x): total cookie protection (enabled by setting firefox's privacy protection to "strict") already partitions third parties, but these extensions could provide a further layer of isolation. container tabs + "Delete cookies and site data when Firefox is closed" + "Manage Exceptions" is excellent cookie management with no other extensions necessary

🟥 don't bother

total cookie protection makes ghostery, privacy badger & privacy possum redundant

you've got ublock origin so adblocker ultimate, ad nauseam & adblocker for youtube are also redundant. if you still see yt ads, remove all custom filters related to youtube on ublock origin and force update your lists

https-only mode has been introduced to all the main browsers so https everywhere is also redundant

trackmenot. it's unverified and indeed i've never seen it recommended in any of the multiple firefox hardening videos and guides i've checked, it's kinda useless unless you're a regular google or bing user. prefer a privacy-focused search engine instead

(e.g. duckduckgo [advanced search tricks here and here] which cleans up bing results and has a lite version too! i've also seen startpage [which cleans up google results] recommended but it's had some controversies. for further info, i recommend checking this)

duckduckgo privacy essentials. i suppose (but i can't be sure) this was installed because when you try to add a search engine in firefox's settings you're redirected to the addons page WHICH IS STUPID OF THEM because you can add them via search bar (i did this with e.g. letterboxd)

don't track me google. for those random google searches you still might need, if you added all the filter lists above to ublock origin you should be fine, and if you aren't you're better off using skip redirect

jury's out on blue blocker because it's unverified. i'm not a twitter user either so i haven't checked it out

[cawyden-gaming]

Rogue Trader - Toybox - General and Heinrix specific information

You can use toybox to check and change values e.g. if you want try out or fix things or help with the game (e.g. reskill without cost etc.).

For the Heinrix romance you can find the values for the closeness and devil flirt counters here and you can influence the romance status (start/complete...).

Toybox:

(Mod on Nexusmods) or get the newest version from GitHub: Here.

After patch you usually have to update - just get the newest version from GitHub and overwrite the existing toybox folder in your game path.

Installation

Install as instructed on Nexusmods or as explained here:

unzip

rename folder (at start and end is a zero) to: 0ToyBox0

Put it in the UnityModManager folder for the game und AppData e.g. if you installed it under hard drive C it would be -> C:\Users\\AppData\LocalLow\Owlcat Games\Warhammer 40000 Rogue Trader\UnityModManager

Please keep in mind that the AppData folder is usually hidden and has to be displayed first (check your folder settings) and you need to have started the game first once to have the path available

-> To call it in game press CTRL + F10

Bag of Tricks

The first tab has a lot of quality of life things that might be helpful to you.

set a key bind to instant kill enemies (if you are in a hurry)

give you resources like reputation points etc.

suppress jealousy + gender limitations for romance

suppress conviction restriction for dialog

etc.

Party

Here you can set (under Stats) your abilities and conviction points. You might need to decrease some points first and then save to allow another conviction to increase above the threshold (I think 45 points for stage 2?).

Oh and free respec - but not from origin - for that you might want to try the Level Up tab but no idea if this works.

Dialog & NPCs

Here you can see in some cases if you require a certain threshold (e.g. devil points) to see a conversation or if something is triggered (like here Start etude (Heinrix) would start his romance)

Etudes/Search'n Pick

For the Etudes you can go to the Search'n Pick tab and on the left side check for Etudes and then enter in the left search "Rom" or "Romances" to get the romance etudes displayed.

If you see "Start" it hasn't started yet. If you see"Complete" and "Unstart" it has started. Pressing on "Start" should start the romance.

E.g. - here is the situation after the first talk (in RTs quarters) with Heinrix where I did not use any of the dialog lines to start his romance:

And here if I have the bridge talk with him where I choose the "lonely" line to start his romance:

For the devil/closeness counters go to "Search 'n Pick" tab and on the left side to "Flags". You can search for "Heinrix_R" to show his romance flags and change the values (don't forget to save before closing the toybox screen)

Corruption points

The flag CorruprionInterrogator (-> please check the spelling - it is not corrupTion but corrupRion) is the one responsible to make Heinrix leave the inquisition (if romanced) see info here how to get the points in game).

If you missed a dialog option or got a bug you can use toybox to manually set the counter.

You need value 2 for the date scene in act 4 to get additional dialog to get another corruption point. For the 2nd romance scene ("freeze" scene) you need 3 points for Heinrix to leave the inquisition.

At some point it will set etude Heresy for Heinrix to leave the inquisition. So if you are very late in game deciding to have him stay, it might be that the corruption point counter is not taken into account anymore when you change it. In this case check the Heresy etude - if it is active he will stay, if not then he will return to the inquisition.

Act 4

1st romance scene: Date

Trigger is explained here.

Etude name: QuietEvening

2nd romance scene: Freeze

Should trigger after doing the main quest on Euphrates II when you leave the planet. There is currently a bug where it does not work, then you can use toybox as workaround and press the play button to play the scene directly (-> but NOT on Euphrates II, go to your ship first).

Jealous scene

You can trigger it (even if you do not romance anyone else, just to see how Heinrix reacts) with toybox too:

Look for the etude Jealousy_ktc and start it - it should trigger the jealous scene (in my case I set it right before leaving Euphrates II and got it after Heinrix's freeze/romance scene).

-> Don't forget to save before closing the toybox screen if you want to keep the changed values.

Heinrix quest flags and endings

Please see here for some Heinrix specific quest flags and how it affects the endings.

Romance related scenes:

Act 1:

- first talk after recruitment + bridge talk afterwards (-> some lines are available in later acts but not all and there are romance related lines (e.g. asking him if he is lonely) in there too)

Act 2:

- Footfall docks (when he returns). You can also have afterwards a mission talk with him but I haven't found romance related lines in there.

- Pillars of Viridice (black ship on ice planet -> has to be done in act 2! If you take other companions with you he will get interrupted by one of them but you can go back to the ship after the scene to get your crew for the later fights in the ship)

- Janus (end of quest after you deal with the governor he will initiate the talk when you leave her office)

- Talk after his quest on Kiava Gamma (in your study + bridge talk afterwards. You can unlock playing (repeatedly) regicide with him)

- Dragonus ceremony (talk with him before you leave for your chambers)

Act 3:

- At the beginning talk on bridge about what happened at the ceremony

- In Commoragh when you find him and in the pit (or you can do Commoragh without him by taking him not with you to the quest where you get captured, then you will get a romance scene at the start of Act 4)

Act 4

- Beginning of Act 4 talk (about Commoragh - just a bridge talk if he was there or a romance scene if he wasn't and you unlock the option to sleep with him whenever you like)

- Early Act 4 during travel (date) (after his companion quest?)

- After Euphrates 2 (optional jealous scene) and romance scene (if you have three or more corruption points you get additional dialog in his romance scene and a bridge talk option afterwards -> this has nothing to do with the conviction, if you go full heretic he will leave you before Euphrates 2! These corruption points are only for him to leave the inquisition to stay with the RT.

Act 5

- Before end planet talk on bridge (you can click several times on him and you will get new dialog but the main romance related one is the first one).

[egg04]

It really feels like there's no "for artists" websites anymore. Anywhizzles.

Guide to Prevent Tumblr From Sharing Your Blog's Content With Their Partners That Train AI Models

[PT: Guide to Prevent Tumblr from Sharing Your Blog's Content With Their Partners That Train AI Models /End PT]

*voice filter for privacy *this is for the [browser] version

[Video Description: Screen-recording of Tumblr, demonstrating how to turn on "Prevent third party sharing" /End Description] [Video Transcript: "Go to your blog's settings. Scroll down to 'Visibility.' At the bottom of Visibility, turn on 'Prevent third party sharing for your blog.' You will have to do this one at a time per each blog if you have multiple. Unfortunately this may not show up for everyone right away, as it took a bit of time to show up on mine. /End Transcript.]

I'll see how it goes setting up my Toyhouse again. More than likely, I'll try to get back to figuring out how to code my own website on Neocities and Github. I'm not leaving Tumblr or Instagram or Pinterest. Not anytime soon I think. But the increased disregard for creative spaces and respecting said spaces... I don't know, I just feel a bit more than down about this whole thing.

[techploration]

Skittering Data Harvesters

Keeping your data secure is tricky. Every time you send a message electronically there is a chance of digital eavesdropping. There is not such thing as total security— your goal is to minimize risk.

So you secure your home network— VPNs, encryption, not a single ‘smart’ appliance. Ad blocker on everything, chat only on closed platforms. You do your best to minimize and anonymize your digital shadow.

But. you’re still getting targeted ads? You get a loan offer for your exact credit debt?

And then you lift your wireless router while cleaning and see a metallic shimmer as something scurries off the back of the table.

Of course. You’ve got bugs.

Literal and Figurative Bugs

As more people install ad blocker and opt out of data collection what are advertisers going to do? Stop collecting every shred of data they can about you? That sure doesn’t sound like capitalism. Turning to shady data collection by legally separate 3rd parties? That sounds a bit more likely

So in come bugs, which are small, cheap data sniffers that crawl themselves into place, collect data until their storage is full, crawl back to a public network and upload your cache. Repeat

They come in hundreds of varieties— colors, features, specializations. Most look like some variation of beetle (a good design is a good design)

They get past digital security by crawling past physical security. They are not looking at what sites you visit— they are clinging to your laptop cloning your entire hard drive. It latched on to your purse when you set it down grabbing coffee, and now you can’t get them out your apartment. You smashed a few and keep seeing more, so you are certain they built a Queen (you found the remnants of your old phone— they must have stripped it for parts)

You also learned you can’t just stomp them and throw them away. You broke the shell but the data is still there. And turns out they don’t just clone their bodies— they clone their data. So they all have your data. And they are going to sell it.

How is this even grey area legal? Because it is anonymous. They don’t target, they infect. The data is random and disorganized. Overwhelming noise to signal ratio. They are supposed to scrub all identifying details, bank info, etc.

So the reality is that it is horrific and predatory but hugely beneficial to advertisers so regulation is minimal and the legal battles protracted.

Oh, and part of the reason it’s so hard to control is that it is an opensource project. The software is on github and parts off the shelf. The hundreds of varieties of the hundreds of competing companies, trying to out perform each other, trying to snipe data from each other.

But no one is sure who wrote the original program (the github author claims to have found it on a forum and the thread gets more tangled from there)

[hpowellsmith]

Hello there! I've been wanting to replay the older Baldur's Gate games, and was searching around for mlm NPC romance mods. I saw yours mentioned and found your site with some googling, but it seems the place they were hosted at is gone now (Spellhold Studios). I was wondering if you still have the mods available somewhere? Either way, I hope you have a great day!

OK, this has made go down a modding-community rabbit hole! I hadn't done anything with our Baldur's Gate 2 mods, or looked at them really, since 2015 and I really appreciate it because they're something that brought my wife and I a ton of joy, and they were the first interactive narratives I made.

Links, descriptions, and comments below because it is Long:

I got in touch with folks on the Gibberlings3 forum which is, wonderfully, still going strong, and have given permission for Faren and Nathaniel to be uploaded to the Spellhold Studios GitHub (which has a bunch of other mods too - do check out Adrian, Isra, and Ninde in particular!) to the team maintaining it. That may be a little while as some of the team are ill right now, but once I hear that it's done, I'll post about it here; I've also been pointed to some links where the mods were mirrored. Note that I haven't tested these myself on a current BG2 install, but it is easy to uninstall WeiDU mods if there's a problem.

Faren is a bisexual True Neutral fighter/thief (I can't remember if he's dual-classed or multi-classed) who's easygoing, down-to-earth, and up for partying, with a bit of a checkered past - his adventuring party died in one of the dungeons you can visit in BG2, and since then he's been picking up dodgy jobs, feeling a bit adrift, and trying to get his life back on track. That's where the PC comes in! You can befriend him or romance him (starting with either a casual or more committed tone, then committing further if you want to), and he has a personal quest in which a shady figure from his past wants him to do one last job. He was our third mod, and we'd developed our skills with writing and scope a lot by then. When I play BG2, I play with Faren! You can currently download Faren here. It's the version updated in 2015 with more banters with modded NPCs and the Enhanced Edition characters; there may be compatibility issues installing it with other newer mods but do give it a try.

I found The Luxley Family, which was our second mod, on the GitHub here. From a cursory (rusty) glance it looks like it should be compatible with Enhanced Edition, but the storyline is only for Shadows of Amn and doesn't continue into Throne of Bhaal. Sebastian and Andrei (Chaotic Neutral bard with a custom kit and Lawful Neutral monk respectively) are members of a mysterious, reclusive family who are under a curse. Sebastian's a worldly playwright who's showing his polite but moody teenage cousin Andrei the sights when they bump into the PC. They aren't romanceable, but you can have a fling with Sebastian, who's bisexual, if you let/help him mess up his life sufficiently.

Nathaniel is a Lawful Good gay fighter with a lot of feelings. He was our first mod and I am really proud of the impact he had on a lot of people and even other games back in the day, but if you play, go in expecting a LOT of feelings good and bad, relationship drama, and angst! (There's something very sad about the fact that as teens we could not imagine a D&D setting without homophobia back then; the idea of a knightly order thinking well of gay people just didn't cross our minds. it's extraordinary how much better a lot of things are now, including the queerness in D&D streams, books, and of course Baldur's Gate 3. Interestingly, we didn't include homophobia in the Luxley Family or Faren and I don't remember how conscious that was; maybe we'd become more hopeful by then.) You can download an outdated version of Nathaniel here but I don't think it will be compatible with Enhanced Edition.

Thank you so much for messaging! I didn't realise they weren't able to be downloaded anymore and I am really keen for digital art to be preserved (as well as players getting to smooch hot guys, of course).

(Digression - my wife and I have a couple of almost-finished mods on our computer: a lesbian cleric of Talos which she wrote, and a bi Valygar romance that I wrote. And, if it's among two computers' ago worth of external hard drive storage, the ending for the Luxley Family story. Who knows, maybe one day...)

[vvitchella]

something weird is happening where the internet is sort of fun again but in order to make it work I have to jump between like 8 different social media sites spending no more than 10-15 minutes on each one, manage my own webpage, block most news except for a couple news sources that I specifically seek out when I'm ready, block all ads (of course), "find" free shows/movies, re-work modern sites via third party open source apps I found on github, have a burner email address to send all junk to, hide my phone,

[qrowscant]

i have a Twine question, if that is alright!

i absolutely LOVED the way you used images in childhood homes, but the twine documentation warns that it isnt very good with images/visuals. how have your experiences with adding photos been? thank you :}

its completely fine!

honestly my experience hasn't been too difficult. i host files on a third party site (there are many options out there, i use github), and then embed them with standard html <img src> stuff. its nothing fancy, and it also works on gifs (though i'd recommend keeping gifs and images on the smaller side to keep loading times short). this also works for page backgrounds.

twine certainty isn't built for it, but its very doable and not at all difficult once you get used to it. have fun! o7

[judacris]

If you're tired of Google cluttering up the search filter buttons with (ir)relevant keywords, I wrote an extension to help make the important ones more prominent in the hopes of bringing back user accessibility to Google Search Results.

It's hosted on my github and you need to install it manually like any third-party extension, but it should work on Chrome and Edge.

[ranidspace]

iMessage got reverse engineered

This is me texting my dad over imessage using an open source demo/proof of concept program that can send and recieve basic texts using the imessage protocol.

Disclaimer: this program stores all your encryption data in a VERY EASILY ACCESSIBLE PLAIN TEXT FILE, please don't share that file with anyone, and if you test it out, delete the file as soon as you're done with it. this is nothing more than a test application and not meant to be a full imessage replacement

it's not got good security, however the messages you send, appear to be private, they encrypt the data beforehand and send it directly to apple's servers (in madrid i guess), nothing in between or anything third party.

Sorry for no alt text, the screenshots are "send" function in imessage.py and the "send_message" and "_connect" function inside of apns.py, both are in the github link i sent earlier in the post ("socket" is a built in python package)

(dont trust a random tumblr user who barely knows how to code to tell you that this is safe, i dont know what im doing, this is just what i think was the relevant functions used in the program to send messages, and i could find no evidence of it stealing any data or sending it to third parties)

This was apparently bought and turned into "Beeper Mini", which. just takes this and makes it into an app that's 2$ a month to use, though (apparently) more secure, more features and you don't have to have it running all the time to get messages.

Beeper Mini is not open source so i have no idea if it's actually doing this or if it's actually private/secure. I would wait for it to be externally audited before using it, i'll add a reblog to this post if it ever does, or if any other programs use this method which have been audited to be as/more secure than the regular imessage app

And no, all of the news outlets reporting on this, beeper mini did not reverse engineer imessage, it's a frontend for someone elses work, which the developer was compensated for and they approve of it! it's not bad, i just dont like how it's being reported on, Beeper themselves even credit the dev:

woo

[poundsofnothing]

So someone is working on a third party application that would allow bluesky to federate with mastodon and I think considering the whole thing of those two social media sites is that they are decentralized and federated it makes sense that it would happen. However on the github page I am seeing what can only be described as the overlap between sovereign citizen and linux furry and it's an amazing vibe there.