#can it not be done with just a python script?

[mourning-again-in-america]

i have never learned what Terraform is but at this point I'm a bit scared to ask

[starbuck]

going into my final week of classes and we always have one last week after the final paper (so the professors have time for grading) where typically the only work we have is one last discussion post.

usually, this post is pretty simple and light (to go easy on us after the final). my ethics class is like “summarize your conclusions from your final paper! :)” and my communications class is like “tell the class about your career goals! :)”

meanwhile, statistics…

[not-terezi-pyrope]

AI continues to be useful, annoying everyone

Okay, look - as much as I've been fairly on the side of "this is actually a pretty incredible technology that does have lots of actual practical uses if used correctly and with knowledge of its shortfalls" throughout the ongoing "AI era", I must admit - I don't use it as a tool too much myself.

I am all too aware of how small errors can slip in here and there, even in output that seems above the level, and, perhaps more importantly, I still have a bit of that personal pride in being able to do things myself! I like the feeling that I have learned a skill, done research on how to do a thing and then deployed that knowledge to get the result I want. It's the bread and butter of working in tech, after all.

But here's the thing, once you move beyond beginner level Python courses and well-documented windows applications. There will often be times when you will want to achieve a very particular thing, which involves working with a specialist application. This will usually be an application written for domain experts of this specialization, and so it will not be user-friendly, and it will certainly not be "outsider-friendly".

So you will download the application. Maybe it's on the command line, has some light scripting involved in a language you've never used, or just has a byzantine shorthand command structure. There is a reference document - thankfully the authors are not that insane - but there are very few examples, and none doing exactly what you want. In order to do the useful thing you want to do, they expect you to understand how the application/platform/scripting language works, to the extent that you can apply it in a novel context.

Which is all fine and well, and normally I would not recommend anybody use a tool at length unless they have taken the time to understand it to the degree at which they know what they are doing. Except I do not wish to use the tool at length, I wish to do one, singular operation, as part of a larger project, and then never touch it again. It is unfortunately not worth my time for me to sink a few hours into learning a technology that you will use once for twenty seconds and then never again.

So you spend time scouring the specialist forums, pulling up a few syntax examples you find randomly of their code and trying to string together the example commands in the docs. If you're lucky, and the syntax has enough in common with something you're familiar with, you should be able to bodge together something that works in 15-20 minutes.

But if you're not lucky, the next step would have been signing up to that forum, or making a post on that subreddit, creating a thread called "Hey, newbie here, needing help with..." and then waiting 24-48 hours to hear back from somebody probably some years-deep veteran looking down on you with scorn for not having put in the effort to learn their Thing, setting aside the fact that you have no reason to normally. It's annoying, disruptive, and takes time.

Now I can ask ChatGPT, and it will have ingested all those docs, all those forums, and it will give you a correct answer in 20 seconds about what you were doing wrong. Because friends, this is where a powerful attention model excels, because you are not asking it to manage a complex system, but to collate complex sources into a simple synthesis. The LLM has already trained in this inference, and it can reproduce it in the blink of an eye, and then deliver information about this inference in the form of a user dialog.

When people say that AI is the future of tutoring, this is what it means. Instead of waiting days to get a reply from a bored human expert, the machine knowledge blender has already got it ready to retrieve via a natural language query, with all the followup Q&A to expand your own knowledge you could desire. And the great thing about applying this to code or scripting syntax is that you can immediately verify whether the output is correct but running it and seeing if it performs as expected, so a lot of the danger is reduced (not that any modern mainstream attention model is likely to make a mistake on something as simple a single line command unless it's something barely documented online, that is).

It's incredibly useful, and it outdoes the capacity of any individual human researcher, as well as the latency of existing human experts. That's something you can't argue we've ever had better before, in any context, and it's something you can actively make use of today. And I will, because it's too good not to - despite my pride.

[deskraven]

《Keep On》 - but with the Terrans!

This is a recreation of Digimon Adventure's ending scene with Earthspark characters :)

As a cross-fandom fan I've wanted to do this for a good while and eventually started working on the project in December, 2024. While it's not perfect and a lot of pieces are still missing, I decided that it's good enough for now and it's time to just post it. Also, this is actually for an International Children's Day (June 1) Chinese fandom event.

Details under the cut

OG Video

Tools I used

Art: Procreate

Animation: Figma (most of the complicated ones), Python (for creating gifs of simple animations), DaVinci Resolve (for putting the whole video together)

Components of the video

00:00 - 00:36

The first sequence is just the main character's silly faces, which is the most fun part to draw! And they already look adorable even without the rest of the video or any music.

I also need to create the flipping effects, which I initially attempted to do with Figma but realized that flipping 8 images at once overloads the tool and makes its animation laggy. I need them to all flip in sync, so this part is actually done with a Python script.

Compared to the OG video, the middle row is missing. I initially planned to draw the human Maltos but unfortunately ran out of time.

00:36 - 00:51

The second sequence provides an overview of 1) locations in the show, 2) side characters of the show, 3) iconic items that belong to the main characters.

For the locations, I took screenshots and edited them into having anime vibes:

Also had to distort the side characters' images so they follow a tilted route. The distortion part is also done with a Python script.

I initially planned to draw the following items for the Terrans but ran out of time:

Swords and housework star stickers for Twitch

Shield and balls for Thrash

Inventions (smart trainer / hologram projector) for Nightshade

Tablet and the director's viewfinder for Hashtag

Dinobot comics & dinosaur fossils for Jawbreaker

Contaminated energon cans for Aftermath

Cyber Slayer for Spitfire

Yeah the items for the Chaos Terrns are pretty cursed lmao, but I honestly can't think of anything else that are iconically theirs.

00:51 - 1:17 Roll out!

In the OG video this part is the main characters rolling out with their Digimon partners. For the Terrans, of course they will be rolling out with their mentor-ish counterparts. (I'm so sorry that Bumblebee wasn't included. You are the best mentor. But like, you are the shared mentor so it's kind hard to point to one Terran and declare you their specific mentor.)

At this point you probably already realized that the only characters that I do not run out of time for are the Terrans. And yeh, once again I run out of time for the Mentors and had to use low resolution stock images, screenshots, and even very inaccurate toy images.

I struggled to decide whether Starscream should stand by Hashtag or Spitfire, but Spitfire really doesn't have anyone besides Starscream so it had to be this way, which is again pretty cursed.

1:17 - 1:31

Turns out I do run out of time even for the Terrans! I was initially planning to draw the "everyone running towards the silver lining" scene but kinda suck at drawing animation. So have some Terrans dancing.

1:31 - 1:42

Hesitated between drawing "Terratronus getting armored up, each armor piece representing one Terrans" - which would be a perfect way to represent the ending of S3! But it'll probably look weird with a horizontal frame so I eventually just drew a traditional family photo.

[sabotourist]

So I was overthinking the mechanics of how AI think themselves to death after 7 or so years in the context of Church and how he couldn't run the suit because of his memories and like.

I kind of hate how much sense that makes.

For those not in the know, computers have what is called RAM, random access memory. It's what programs use to store temporary data so that it can be called quickly enough to run a program. If you run a python script, those variables in the script are stored in memory. Not necessarily in a file unless you write the data there. They're just stored locally within the program and then the memory is deallocated when the program is done so that the computer can use that space for other things.

But as a computer runs, stuff starts to clog the memory. Memory leaks, background programs, whatever. Junk code can clog the memory that isn't helping anything and just slows down the computer. The easy solution to this is to restart the computer, which flushes the memory. It's why the number one tech support tip is to turn a computer off and on again, and part of why that usually works. It's getting rid of all the buggy jank code clogging up memory.

Okay great.

So what if the computer is a person and that junk code is actual memories.

What if that buggy, slow computer is a person that feels emotions and values his memories? And now that computer needs to run something that he. Does not have the space in his memory to run.

What if those memories are what are holding him together as a person, a person of his own, and without that he is seven individual subroutines?

And then he has to throw all those memories away because the number one way to fix a buggy computer is to reboot it.

Anyway I'm feral about that little blue bitch.

[kitkatt0430]

Welp, I've been using external methods of auto-backing up my tumblr but it seems like it doesn't do static pages, only posts.

So I guess I'll have some manual backing up to do later

Still, it's better than nothing and I'm using the official tumblr backup process for my smaller blogs so hopefully that'll net the static pages and direct messages too. But. My main - starstruckpurpledragon - 'backed up' officially but was undownloadable; either it failed or it'd download a broken, unusable, 'empty' zip. So *shrugs* I'm sure I'm not the only one who is trying to back up everything at once. Wouldn't be shocked if the rest of the backups are borked too when I try to download their zips.

There are two diff ways I've been externally backing up my tumblr.

TumblThree - This one is relatively straight forward in that you can download it and start backing up immediately. It's not pretty, but it gets the job done. Does not get static pages or your direct message conversations, but your posts, gifs, jpegs, etc are all there. You can back up more than just your own blog(s) if you want to as well.

That said, it dumps all your posts into one of three text files which makes them hard to find. That's why I say it's 'not pretty'. It does have a lot of options in there that are useful for tweaking your download experience and it's not bad for if you're unfamiliar with command line solutions and don't have an interest in learning them. (Which is fair, command line can be annoying if you're not used to it.) There are options for converting the output into nicer html files for each post but I haven't tried them and I suspect they require command line anyway.

I got my blogs backed up using this method as of yesterday but wasn't thrilled with the output. Decided that hey, I'm a software engineer, command line doesn't scare me, I'll try this back up thing another way. Leading to today's successful adventures with:

TumblrUtils - This one does take more work to set up but once it's working it'll back up all your posts in pretty html files by default. It does take some additional doing for video/audio but so does TumblThree so I'll probably look into it more later.

First, you have to download and install python. I promise, the code snake isn't dangerous, it's an incredibly useful scripting language. If you have an interest in learning computer languages, it's not a bad one to know. Installing python should go pretty fast and when it's completed, you'll now be able to run python scripts from the command line/terminal.

Next, you'll want to actually download the TumblrUtils zip file and unzip that somewhere. I stuck mine on an external drive, but basically put it where you've got space and can access it easily.

You'll want to open up the tumblr_backup.py file with a text editor and find line 105, which should look like: ''' API_KEY = '' '''

So here's the hard part. Getting a key to stick in there. Go to the tumblr apps page to 'register' an application - which is the fancy way of saying request an API. Hit the register an application button and, oh joy. A form. With required fields. *sigh* All the url fields can be the same url. It just needs to be a valid one. Ostensibly something that interfaces with tumblr fairly nicely. I have an old wordpress blog, so I used it. The rest of the fields should be pretty self explanatory. Only fill in the required ones. It should be approved instantly if everything is filled in right.

And maybe I'll start figuring out wordpress integration if tumblr doesn't die this year, that'd be interesting. *shrug* I've got too many projects to start a new one now, but I like learning things for the sake of learning them sometimes. So it's on my maybe to do list now.

Anywho, all goes well, you should now have an 'OAuth Consumer Key' which is the API key you want. Copy that, put in between the empty single quotes in the python script, and hit save.

Command line time!

It's fairly simple to do. Open your command line (or terminal), navigate to where the script lives, and then run: ''' tumblr_backup.py <blog_name_here> '''

You can also include options before the blog name but after the script filename if you want to get fancy about things. But just let it sit there running until it backs the whole blog up. It can also handle multiple blogs at once if you want. Big blogs will take hours, small blogs will take a few minutes. Which is about on par with TumblThree too, tbh.

The final result is pretty. Individual html files for every post (backdated to the original post date) and anything you reblogged, theme information, a shiny index file organizing everything. It's really quite nice to dig through. Much like TumbleThree, it does not seem to grab direct message conversations or static pages (non-posts) but again it's better than nothing.

And you can back up other blogs too, so if there are fandom blogs you follow and don't want to lose or friends whose blogs you'd like to hang on to for your own re-reading purposes, that's doable with either of these backup options.

I've backed up basically everything all over again today using this method (my main is still backing up, slow going) and it does appear to take less memory than official backups do. So that's a plus.

Anyway, this was me tossing my hat into the 'how to back up your tumblr' ring. Hope it's useful. :D

[weekendviking]

Transcripts I never thought I'd see outside of a Spitting Image or Monty Python script, Russian Asset edition:

Transcript, in case you are one, like many, who no longer bothers with the howling fashy boomer kaos of the Zuckbook:

"Senator Jeff Merkley walked into the hearing room like a man who’d just been told his car got keyed and knew exactly who did it. On the other side of the table sat Christopher Landau, Trump’s nominee for Ambassador to Mexico, who looked like he hadn’t slept since Inauguration Day, and Matthew Whitaker, a former acting Attorney General who carries himself like a guy who still brags about his high school bench press record.

The setup was simple: Merkley had questions, and Landau and Whitaker had excuses — weak, sweaty excuses that couldn’t outrun a three-legged dog.

It didn’t take long for the whole thing to unravel. Merkley started calmly, like a guy setting mousetraps in a room full of blindfolded rats. Then the hammer dropped.

Senator Jeff Merkley: "I wanted to, uh... uh... ask you, Mr. Landau — is President Trump a Russian asset?"

That's how Merkley started — no warmup, no warning. Just kicked the door open and asked the question nobody else had the nerve to say out loud.

Mr. Landau: "Absolutely not, Senator. He's the President of the United States, duly elected by the American people."

Landau might as well have answered, "Please don't ask me anything else." Merkley wasn’t about to let him off that easy.

Senator Merkley: "Well, the reason I ask is many people back home have been asking me this question. And they say, 'If he was an asset, we would see exactly what he's doing now.'"

It’s the kind of thing that sounds conspiratorial until you start listing the evidence. And that’s exactly what Merkley did.

Senator Merkley: "For example... he proceeded to forward — or express from the Oval Office — propaganda that has been Russian propaganda... that Ukraine started the war... that, uh... Zelensky is a dictator."

Step one: repeat Kremlin talking points like they’re gospel.

Senator Merkley: "Second of all... he gave away key things on the negotiating table before the negotiations even started, ensuring the U.S. would absolutely oppose, um... any possibility of NATO membership for Ukraine."

That’s like showing up to a poker game and tossing your entire stack of chips across the table before the first card’s dealt.

Senator Merkley: "Uh... third... he's cut off the arms shipments to Ukraine completely — undermining their ability against a massive neighbor next door with short supply lines and... and huge resources."

Pause here and picture Vladimir Putin popping champagne.

Senator Merkley: "Fourth... he's undermined the partnership with Europe, which has been essential to security over the last 80 years — a major goal of Putin’s."

At this point, Merkley wasn’t describing bad policy — he was reading Putin’s wish list.

Senator Merkley: "And then... he's done everything to discredit and demean Zelensky on the international stage — notably with that shameful press conference in which he teamed up with the Vice President to attack Zelensky."

Ah yes, that infamous JD Vance press conference — the diplomatic equivalent of shoving Zelensky’s head in a toilet while Putin watched from the corner clapping like a seal.

Senator Merkley: "I can't imagine that if he was a Russian asset, he could be doing anything more favorable than these five points."

Boom. Merkley didn’t need to say “traitor” — he just pointed at the scoreboard.

Senator Merkley: "Uh... what else could a Russian asset actually possibly do that Trump hasn't yet done?"

What else, indeed? The room was dead silent — the kind of pause where you can hear chairs creak and paper shuffle.

Landau tried to squirm out.

Mr. Landau: "Senator, the President has made it absolutely clear that his top priority is to try to bring peace and end an absolutely savage war. I... I know you're familiar with the, uh... the... the savagery. This is turning into World War I-style trench warfare now in eastern Ukraine."

Translation: I have nothing, so let me ramble until you forget what you asked.

Mr. Landau: "The President is an exceptionally gifted dealmaker. He is probably the only individual in the entire universe that could actually stop this."

The entire universe. Not just Earth — the universe. Apparently Trump’s cutting side deals with Alpha Centauri now.

Senator Merkley: "Well, let's turn to another — thank you very much, since you're now off the topic I was raising."

That’s polite for “You're embarrassing yourself — let’s try someone else.”

Merkley turned to Whitaker.

Senator Merkley: "Mr. Whitaker, these five things that the President has done that are so favorable to Putin and so damaging to Ukraine and to our partnership with Europe... do you approve of them?"

Whitaker tried the old “blame Biden” routine.

Mr. Whitaker: "Well, Senator, thanks for that question. I'm just going to have to, uh... politely disagree with you, uh... on those five things and the way you've framed them."

"You know... the war in Ukraine would have never happened if President Trump was president in 2022. The war in Ukraine happened because of Joe Biden’s weakness."

Merkley didn’t flinch.

Senator Merkley: "Well, maybe you could some other time go on television and express those points of view, but... do you mind just answering the question I asked?"

And that’s where Whitaker realized he’d stepped into the bear trap.

Senator Merkley: "Do you agree with the five things that President Trump has done — starting with him expressing Russian propaganda from the Oval Office?"

Mr. Whitaker: "Well, you know... again, as I mentioned to your colleague, I am not here to assign labels. We're in the middle of a very, uh... important peace negotiation."

Senator Merkley: "I agree. Thank you. Uh... I... I do hope that we have an Administration that works to get the very best deal for Ukraine.

"But what a Russian asset would do would be to work to get the very best deal for Russia — and that appears to be exactly what Donald Trump is trying to accomplish."

Merkley didn’t shout. He didn’t wave his arms. He just said it — clear as glass — and let the silence hang heavy in the room.

Landau and Whitaker sat there like a couple of guys who’d just realized their GPS was guiding them into a lake.

If Trump isn’t a Russian asset, he’s sure putting in the effort to look like one."

[cyberstudious]

Tools of the Trade for Learning Cybersecurity

I created this post for the Studyblr Masterpost Jam, check out the tag for more cool masterposts from folks in the studyblr community!

Cybersecurity professionals use a lot of different tools to get the job done. There are plenty of fancy and expensive tools that enterprise security teams use, but luckily there are also lots of brilliant people writing free and open-source software. In this post, I'm going to list some popular free tools that you can download right now to practice and learn with.

In my opinion, one of the most important tools you can learn how to use is a virtual machine. If you're not already familiar with Linux, this is a great way to learn. VMs are helpful for separating all your security tools from your everyday OS, isolating potentially malicious files, and just generally experimenting. You'll need to use something like VirtualBox or VMWare Workstation (Workstation Pro is now free for personal use, but they make you jump through hoops to download it).

Below is a list of some popular cybersecurity-focused Linux distributions that come with lots of tools pre-installed:

Kali is a popular distro that comes loaded with tools for penetration testing

REMnux is a distro built for malware analysis

honorable mention for FLARE-VM, which is not a VM on its own, but a set of scripts for setting up a malware analysis workstation & installing tools on a Windows VM.

SANS maintains several different distros that are used in their courses. You'll need to create an account to download them, but they're all free:

Slingshot is built for penetration testing

SIFT Workstation is a distro that comes with lots of tools for digital forensics

These distros can be kind of overwhelming if you don't know how to use most of the pre-installed software yet, so just starting with a regular Linux distribution and installing tools as you want to learn them is another good choice for learning.

Free Software

Wireshark: sniff packets and explore network protocols

Ghidra and the free version of IDA Pro are the top picks for reverse engineering

for digital forensics, check out Eric Zimmerman's tools - there are many different ones for exploring & analyzing different forensic artifacts

pwntools is a super useful Python library for solving binary exploitation CTF challenges

CyberChef is a tool that makes it easy to manipulate data - encryption & decryption, encoding & decoding, formatting, conversions… CyberChef gives you a lot to work with (and there's a web version - no installation required!).

Burp Suite is a handy tool for web security testing that has a free community edition

Metasploit is a popular penetration testing framework, check out Metasploitable if you want a target to practice with

SANS also has a list of free tools that's worth checking out.

Programming Languages

Knowing how to write code isn't a hard requirement for learning cybersecurity, but it's incredibly useful. Any programming language will do, especially since learning one will make it easy to pick up others, but these are some common ones that security folks use:

Python is quick to write, easy to learn, and since it's so popular, there are lots of helpful libraries out there.

PowerShell is useful for automating things in the Windows world. It's built on .NET, so you can practically dip into writing C# if you need a bit more power.

Go is a relatively new language, but it's popular and there are some security tools written in it.

Rust is another new-ish language that's designed for memory safety and it has a wonderful community. There's a bit of a steep learning curve, but learning Rust makes you understand how memory bugs work and I think that's neat.

If you want to get into reverse engineering or malware analysis, you'll want to have a good grasp of C and C++.

Other Tools for Cybersecurity

There are lots of things you'll need that aren't specific to cybersecurity, like:

a good system for taking notes, whether that's pen & paper or software-based. I recommend using something that lets you work in plain text or close to it.

general command line familiarity + basic knowledge of CLI text editors (nano is great, but what if you have to work with a system that only has vi?)

familiarity with git and docker will be helpful

There are countless scripts and programs out there, but the most important thing is understanding what your tools do and how they work. There is no magic "hack this system" or "solve this forensics case" button. Tools are great for speeding up the process, but you have to know what the process is. Definitely take some time to learn how to use them, but don't base your entire understanding of security on code that someone else wrote. That's how you end up as a "script kiddie", and your skills and knowledge will be limited.

Feel free to send me an ask if you have questions about any specific tool or something you found that I haven't listed. I have approximate knowledge of many things, and if I don't have an answer I can at least help point you in the right direction.

[mask131]

Why the Time Bandits remake makes me feel an angry despair (1)

I announced it before: I am mounting my high horses for this matter.

"Time Bandits" is a children fantasy movie by Terry Gilliam, released in 1981. It is one of those "almost Monty-Python-movies" thanks to two other Monty Python actors joining Gilliam's project: John Cleese, playing Robin Hood, and Michael Palin playing a poor guy who keeps being reincarnated throughout history and always has the worst love life. This movie is part of the "Imagination Trilogy" of Gilliam, meant to represent the "childhood imagination" - alongside the dark movie "Brazil", for "adult imagination", and Gilliam's adaptation of the Adventures of the Baron Münchausen, for "old man imagination".

I love Time Bandits. It isn't just that I love, I adore it. This was one of my favorite movies as a kid, and it was such a huge part of my childhood it literaly shaped my imagination in many, many ways. It is still to this day one of my favorite movies, with such a unique feeling I couldn't find anywhere else but in other Gilliam-related or Python-related movies.

It is one of these rare things where I can say I am really a huge fan. I bought the Criterion Collection DVD, I bought the official script-book, I went online to find alternate versions of the scripts which contained deleted scenes NOT in the official script-book...

I even chose this movie as the subject of my presentation for my high school diploma, doing a full analysis of it that gave me a very good grade. I am really in love with this piece.

NOW if you haven't heard about it, a trailer was released for an Apple + series of (10 episodes I think?). "2024 Time Bandits". A remake by Taika Waititi (among others but he is the main guy behind this).

I had heard of this project a long time ago because Waititi's desire to do something Time Bandits related has been around since his glory days with "What we do in the shadows". He kept speaking about how much he loved Time Bandits and how he wanted to do something related to it.

... I never realized he meant doing a remake a it. Time Bandits has so much potential for sequels or prequels or alternate takes or whatever cinematic terminology you have.

Now, that being said, I don't mind a remake. Waititi has proven to have good ideas and cool projects, and he seemed to really be a fan of the original - plus it was a project he had been dragging for quite some times, so I had still some interests and hopes...

... and then the trailer came out. And I saw it. And...

... You know it will be the first time in my life I will turn into one of those angry Internet ranters mad about a remake of their favorite thing. Never in my life before I was involved on a personal level with disliking a remake but OH BOY here I am.

There are so many things BAD with this trailer. Not wrong. BAD. I don't dislike all about the trailer... But I dislike most of it, and I don't just "dislike" it as in "Oh yeah, they could have done better", no, we are talking about a "I DESPISE this".

Honestly it looks like the people behind this series considered everything that made Time Bandits unique and powerful and cool and weird... and decided to remove it to make it bland, flat and... a sort of flavorless, mass-marketable Americanized modern vaguely super-hero like movie (did Waititi's experience on the Thor movies screwed his imagination THAT badly?)

I literaly do not understand how someone so hellbent and so dedicated to Time Bandits could create a product that looks like was designed by people who only vaguely heard of the original movie's plot. Because the people who made this series clearly did NOT understood the heart, soul or goal or the movie.

I heard something about Terry Gilliam being hired as an executive producer, coming on the set for a planned three months, but leaving abruptly after only three days and never returning. And people concluded that it was because he was pissed off. Seeing the trailer, I am inclined to believe he was.

[humansbgone]

Out of curiosity, based on your latest update post: How do you use Python when using Blender? :0

I know Blender's foundation is Python and users are free to modify the software as they see fit. So... how do you tinker in Blender and for what reason?

I've made a few Python scripts for Python in my time, but currently I use them for two big areas: curves and Rigify.

Curves are what they sound like, bendy wiggly objects that are good for things like tentacles and vines. I use them for the characters' antennae and eyebrows, since the mesh I use for the bodies would easily crumple weirdly on such elastic movement. They're perfect for that!

Unfortunately, rigging curves--that is, adding them to the character's skeleton--is a very lengthy process. Every point has to be added by hand with a modifier, and if you change the rig (skeleton) *at all,* it has to be done over from scratch. All over again. So, I wrote some functions to take care of that for me whenever I change the rig.

The second thing I use it for is an add-on called Rigify. Rigify makes it simple to make very dynamic, expressive rigs, and is perfect for the human and mantis characters! (Not so great for spiders, sadly.) Unfortunately, Rigify has some shortcomings, especially when it comes to using custom bones. If you just want to use a regular bone, without any of Rigify's fancy add-ons, you have to manually enable it when you generate a Rigify rig.

And, well, you have to generate a Rigify rig from your "metarig" every single time you want to make any changes to your rig. At all. So, I wrote a function to enable all my custom bones for me after generation. However, this brings us to the next problem.

I like to be able to "sculpt" with my rigs. Make the head bigger, tweak the angles on the legs, alter the shapes of things, things like that. Then, I can apply the changes to the mesh and the rig. ...Except, I can't, if Rigify only lets me make changes to the *metarig,* which is not the rig that affects the mesh.

But, recently, I *finally* got it going so I can transfer the generated rig's pose back to the metarig!! HAH!

So, yes. That's what I use Python for.

[lilleputtu]

Lille's Kingdom Events Generator

It is done-ish! And by that I mean the most basic form of this lil idea I had is ready to be unleashed on the world.

But Lille, what even is this?

Why thank you for asking, audience in my head. This is a random generator that reads in a list of events and a list of kingdoms and gives you random events that make sense to happen to said kingdoms based on requirements. Kinda like everyones beloved ROS, but instead of being for single households usually, it's on a more neighborhood scale and has a few more ways for you to influence which events roll.

I am bad at explaining it, but I promise it makes sense.

Is it necessarily a sims thing? Absolutely not! I am sure you could use this for writing prompts or random events in a TTRPG campaign or whathaveyou. But my main thought was "medieval simmers would love to have a random thing to throw natural disasters or war refugees from whatever fictional 'other' kingdoms are around in their minds at them" because I AM that medieval simmer.

So here's what you get:

An .exe which randomizes things, ala ROS, but while taking requirements into account.

An XML with sample events to generate. Are they good? Eh, they'll do. This is why it's an XML, so you can edit it and someone smarter than me can make a cooler version.

An XML with sample Kingdoms, upon which the requirements for the events are tested. They are named A,B,C,D and E and just had random-ish values thrown at them. Edit them. make them your own!

A Readme, which explains things in more detail.

Huge thanks to @clouseplayssims for throwing some inspiration in the form of every single ROS list in existence at me and being one of my initial guinea pigs, as well as enabling the silly little idea in the first place.

Alrighty, to the download, yes?

DOWNLOAD(SFS)

Note: Due to how I turned the base python code into an exe, some antiviruses flag it as a possible Trojan. I do not know how to fix that. I can only say that me and my 200 lines of code do not want to damage your computer or steal your monies, I promise.

Further note: I compiled and tested this on Windows 10. It might work on other operating systems, but i make no promises. If anyone is running into issues like that and or knows how to compile a python script, please let me know, i am more than happy to pass you the sourcecode so more people can have a functioning version of this.

I will happily answer any questions, take suggestions or try to do tech support, just let me know!

Also definitely feel free to share your edited events/kingdoms files. My examples are thrown together haphazardly and it SHOWS.

Also - you can totally use it for non medieval things. Just write modern events and ignore the fact that the program calls things in the kingdom file kingdoms. They could be cities, or planets, or whatever else you can come up with!

[sl33py-g4m3r]

too hot to sleep cause I guess my air conditioner is broken

decide to try my first ever homebrew project and jailbreak a 3ds I had

take card out, copy files, run a python script (cause I'm on linux), repeat until it's done~~

I just wanted to see how it worked but in all seriousness I should've done the one all my stuff was on so I could dump all the digital games I have on there

cause then I could try playing SMT IV again on the steam deck~~~

might try that~~~ but the bad thing about the "new" 3DS as opposed to the other one is that you need to unscrew the back plate to get to the SD card.

and if I lost all the digital games cause something went wrong, I'd be out of luck maybe and not be able to get those games back...

could be wrong tho~~ idk

happy I did a thing~~~ so I can dump my DS games and emulate on steam deck~~~ or at least the physical ones anyway~~~

want to continue w the other one but also need sleep probably~~~ lol

my first home brew~~~ now what do I do with it? or what can I do with it? was just here for the "I can back up my games" side of things~~ what other awesome stuff can I do?

also happy and proud of myself cause I didn't think i was smart enough to do something like this; I mean it's technical but still kinda simple~~ you got to do stuff in a very specific way~~~

breathing life into an older system~~~ let's go~~~~

taking the back off my primary 3DS was easy actually cause I think when I changed the battery I broke the case and it no longer is held down by the one screw. lol. the other one I lost~~

oops

[nocturne-of-illusions]

Maybe I’m just stupid but I downloaded Python, I downloaded the whole tumblr backup thing & extracted the files but when I opened the folder it wasn’t a system it was just a lot of other folders with like reblog on it? I tried to follow the instructions on the site but wtf does “pip-tumblr-download” mean? And then I gotta make a tumblr “app”? Sorry for bugging you w this

no worries! i've hit the same exact learning curve for this tool LMAO, so while my explanations may be more based on my own understanding of how function A leads to action B rather than real knowledge of how these things Work, I'll help where i can!

as far as i understand, pip is simply a way to install scripts through python rather than through manually downloading and installing something. it's done through the command line, so when it says "pip install tumblr-backup", that means to copy-paste that command into a command line window, press enter, and watch as python installs it directly from github. you shouldn't need to keep the file you downloaded; that's for manual installs.

HOWEVER! if you want to do things like saving audio/video, exif tagging, saving notes, filtering, or all of the above, you can look in the section about "optional dependencies" on the github. it lists the different pip install commands you can use for each of those, or an option to install all of them at once!

by doing it using pip, you don't have to manually tell the command line "hey, go to this folder where this script is. now run this script using these options. some of these require another script, and those are located in this other place." instead, it just goes "oh you're asking for the tumblr-backup script? i know where that is! i'll run it for you using the options you've requested! oh you're asking for this option that requires a separate script? i know where that is too!"

as for the app and oauth key, you can follow this tutorial in a doc posted on this post a while back! the actual contents of the application don't matter much; you just need the oauth consumer key provided once you've finished filling out the app information. you'll then go back to your command line and copy-paste in "tumblr-backup --set-api-key API_KEY" where API_KEY is that oauth key you got from the app page.

then you're ready to start backing up! your command line will be "tumblr-backup [options] blog-name", where blog-name is the name of the blog like it says on the tin, and the [options] are the ones listed on the github.

for example, the command i use for this blog is "tumblr-backup -i --tag-index --save-video --save-audio --skip-dns-check --no-reblog nocturne-of-illusions"... "-i" is incremental backups, the whole "i have 100 new posts, just add those to the old backup" function. "--tag-index" creates an index page with all of your tags, for easy sorting! "--save-video", "--save-audio", and "--no-reblog" are what they say they are.

⚠️ (possibly) important! there are two current main issues w backups, but the one that affected me (and therefore i know how to get around) is a dns issue. for any of multiple reasons, your backup might suddenly stall. it might not give a reason, or it might say your internet disconnected. if this happens, try adding "--skip-dns-check" to your options; if the dns check is your issue, this should theoretically solve it.

if you DO have an issue with a first backup, whether it's an error or it stalls, try closing the command window, reopening it, copy-pasting your backup command, and adding "--continue" to your list of options. it'll pick up where it left off. if it gives you any messages, follow the instructions; "--continue" doesn't work well with some commands, like "-i", so you'll want to just remove the offending option until that first backup is done. then you can remove "--continue" and add the other one back on!

there are many cool options to choose from (that i'm gonna go back through now that i have a better idea of what i'm doing ksjdkfjn), so be sure to go through to see if any of them seem useful to you!

[scotisfr]

Intro:

As you can see on my obsidian, I'm only starting to research about technopaganism. I'm having fun to explore it, so while I will describe how I make a "technoshrine to pray(temporary name)" feel free to add you grain of salt or correct me or brainstorm with me.

First thought:

There's people making emoji spell. That look like fun! And we can pray together, asynchronous with a common language. Do you know what is even more common when we talk about computer/phone ? BITS ! 1s and 0s! But, emoji's are unicode nowadays, and let's be real, nobody know how to read that kind of language. So let's not go that far into computer language. What about source code into machine code ? No, compiler are a mess. What could be as readable as emoji's ? Python ? That's a programing language that is really fast to understand because that's almost English and it work on almost all platform (maybe in can work on magic platforms).

So, let's make Python something magical to communicate with digital spirits !

What could we invent ? Digital altars/shrine, digital ritual, cyber divination, AR witchcraft, VR coven, technological familiars, code as spellcraft, where algorithms and scripts become incantation to manipulate digital or magical realms. And maybe MakerWitch can do 3D prints and create tools IRL ?

Obsidian: That's not a topic I want to cover, but I use it for my technopaganism research, so here's how I setup-it and use it : https://youtu.be/hSTy_BInQs8?si=Ci1NZ_H0tjcuCYIw I can talk about it more when I feel like I have a good vault structure, if it interest someone. Thoughtform : I have some brainstorming on how to make thoughform on Gdoc and Obsidian, if someone want to brainstorm on that with me ^^.

Look at one of my cat before I start to explain. FalseCode I want to make, what requirements specification?

Need to look like pseudocode (Pseudocode is an important type of comment that becomes a special type of to-do list, especially when you don’t understand how to accomplish a coding task. more here : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudocode)

The syntax NEED to be simple like python and readable

As it's for me to continue working with my spirits, it need to be using Neo-khuzdul, but still, I want people to be able to read my code, so explain in plain English as needed

I want to be able to use it anywhere (even in .txt notes), so let's make it resemble command-line interface (CLI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Command-line_interface)

Replicated a CML interface, design-wise:

I just wanted to use JetBrains because it's the more readable in my opinion, when coding. The background is not black, because purple is more magic-y. The rest, it's PyCharm colors (a software for coding Python).

Writing and using the Falsecode:

I will make a easier to follow step-by-step "how did I did that". I will try to not make it to tech-savvy, but I want you to follow if you want to do your own or just talk with me about it (please, I will love you if I can talk about my falsecode <3).

Keep in mind that I will talk as if the FalseCode is a true thing, my terminal is working et caetera, but in reality, it's just me writing and emulating a true functionality. It's my doll house.

Open a Gdocument, make a little boxe that will be our terminal

2. A false loading bar to make it fancy, and a launching prompt. It tell me that my AznâMakhla (FalseCode) is open in forge mode. And if something is opened, it need to be closed (and let add a little nice message)

3. Okay, I have an interface to do code into. Let's start a space for me to work into: the Forge of Renewal. While opening, the space will open and learn dictionaries so I can use my falsecode and english to talk with the space and the entities in it. I initialize the falsecode in itself, the inverse so the entities (Taznân) can also communicate with me, and emoji's (because I will use them to do spell). When it's done, it tell me "success" and a little welcoming message is here to tell me that I can start to work (and at the end, it will have an ending message when the space is closed) For me, this space is my circle. I open it, I close it ; while I'm inside I can focus on working with spirit and welcomed entities.

4. I have an interface and a magical space, now, how about some tools to work with ? Like an instant translation between what I will write in english into the FalseCode, it can be useful !

5. I'm starting to work into the space, I'm a beginner. I want to summon/invite a nice entities to keep me safe while I work. Why not a sentinel that will become my guardian while I'm here ?

6. Here! Now, how about I take a little look around before I start working ?

And that's it. So here's the opening, the "working-wizard" that symbolize the work you do in this environment/circle and the ending.

I only did one meditation in movement with all that and it was ... not well received by the spirits I work normally. Hypothesis : a) I was too focus on the technical and not enough on my intention and perceptibly of the digital space b) I'm not summoning the right spirit to work like that and my common spirit are just confused about wtf I'm trying to do c) or just, another thing I did not though of yet.

If you want to talk about it (or any adjacent topic) and/or ask question, don't be shy, I would like that greatly ^^.

[skaruresonic]

RenPy: Defining Characters

One of the first things RenPy does upon initialization (the boot-up period before the start label executes the game) is read your custom-made character strings to determine what character dialogue will look like.

Although defining usually takes place under the init block, I've chosen to make a separate pre-start label for organization purposes. Really, any time is fine as long as you make sure the pre-start label runs before the game actually executes, or else you're going to encounter errors.

Let's take a look at the code piece by piece.

$ a = Person(Character("Arthur", who_color="#F4DFB8", who_outlines=[( 3, "#2B0800", 0, 2 )], what_outlines=[( 3, "#2B0800", 0, 2 )], what_color="#F4DFB8", who_font="riseofkingdom.ttf", what_font="junicode.ttf", ctc="ctc", ctc_position="fixed", what_prefix='"', what_suffix='"'), "Arthur", "images/arthurtemp1.png") $ is a common symbol used by both Python and RenPy to define custom-made variables. Here in the pre-start label section of our script, we're using it to define our characters.

For the sake of propriety, it's probably better to define characters using define, but for ease of use, I've chosen $ instead.

It would be tiresome to have to write "Arthur" every time I wanted to call him in the script. Luckily, by assigning these parameters before initialization, RenPy will read "a" as Arthur.

Most scripts will suffice with assigning a Character object class to your character. If you open the script for The Tutorial, you'll find a basic string that looks like this: $ e = Character("Eileen") As you can see in my batch of code, however, I've done something different by nestling the Character object class within a Person object class. The reason why will become apparent in future posts.

For now, let's focus on the fundamentals.

---

who_color tells RenPy the color of the character's name, determined by a hexadecimal code (either three, four, or six digits). Its sister parameter what_color tells RenPy the color of a character's dialogue text.

If no values are given for these parameters, RenPy will look at your project's GUI file to determine them.

---

who_font tells RenPy the kind of font you want to use for your character's name, and likewise, what_font determines the font you want to use for your character's dialogue.

Note that these fonts do not have to match. They can be whatever font you wish.

The size of character names and dialogue text can be customized in the GUI file of your project:

---

who_outlines=[( 3, "#2B0800", 0, 2 )], what_outlines=[( 3, "#2B0800", 0, 2 )]

who_outlines and what_outlines add outlines or drop shadows to your text (character name and character dialogue, respectively). This string is expressed as a tuple, or four values enclosed by parentheses.

The first value expresses the width of the shadow in pixels. The second value is a hexadecimal value for your chosen color. The third value offsets the shadow along the X-axis (pixels to the right or left of the text). Because it's set to 0, my drop shadows do not appear to the right or the left of the text. The fourth value offsets the shadow along the Y-axis (pixels beneath/above the text). In this case, shadows appear 2 pixels beneath the text.

My outlines are a bit hard to see because they're only 3 pixels wide and 2 pixels offset.

---

Font files RenPy recognizes TrueType font files. You can download TTF fonts for free online - just be sure to unzip them and put them in your game folder.

If you intend to monetize your project, you absolutely need to make certain your fonts are royalty-free or, ideally, public domain. Most font families come with licenses telling you whether they are free use.

To be on the safe side, I would put the following code before the start label in your script, just so RenPy knows which files to look for:

init:

define config.preload_fonts = ["fontname1.ttf", "fontname2.ttf", "fontname3.ttf"]

---

ctc stands for "click to continue." It's a small icon commonly seen in visual novels, usually in one corner of the text box, that indicates the player has reached the end of a line. It's called "click to continue" because the program waits for the reader to interact to continue. To make a custom ctc icon, make a small drawing in an art program and save the image to your GUI folder. As seen above, I'm using a tiny moon as the ctc in my current project. ctc_position="fixed" means the ctc icon will stay rooted in whatever place you specify in the code. Like with most everything else in RenPy, you can apply transforms to the ctc if you so wish. Fun fact: because the ctc is determined on a character-by-character basis in initialization, you can give different characters custom ctcs!

---

what_prefix="" and what_suffix="" add scare quotes to the beginning and end of a character's dialogue.

One thing you'll notice as you work with RenPy is that "the computer is stupid." That is to say, the program will not execute code you don't explicitly spell out. Things which seem intuitive and a given to us are not interpreted by the program unless you write them into the code.

That is why, in this case, you need to specify both prefix and suffix, otherwise RenPy may begin lines of dialogue with " but not end with ", or vice-versa.

Note that unless you apply these parameters to the narrator character, ADV and NVL narration will not have them.

---

** Note: the next two tags following these ones are extraneous and therefore ignored.

[legacyshenanigans]

Hello B!! I have come once again to bless your day and also ask some strange stuff again because I have no self control apparently 💚🐲 (I promise this time it's just me being curious)

Before I say anything I just have to thank you a billion times for the snake Gaunt boys snip bits from yesterday you absolutely killed it and I will forever love you for it 💚💚💚💚🐍🐍🐍🐍 oh and here.... have some gold and diamonds from my hoard 🪙🪙👑👑💎💎

Now the actual ask, since you've dropped the Rerek's opinions on everyone video I've been thinking, we've gotten to know a lot about our favourite boys Marvolo and Rowan but what about our favourite danger noodle?!! 🐍🐍

I'm not sure if you already gave some snip bits about him I tried to look but I couldn't really find any fun facts about our precious snake boy so I want to ask if you could tell us some interesting details about him....I don't know something like:

What's his favourite food?

What does he like to do in his spare time?

What exact breed of a snake is he? (I think he might be a rainbow python judging by the picture but I just want to be sure)

Was he given to Marvolo as a baby or did Marvolo find him and take him in himself?

And these might be a bit random but:

What's his favourite memory growing up with the Gaunts?

What would he do if Marvolo walked up to him without saying a word and booped him on the snoot?

And the last one what would human Rerek look like?

Sorry if I'm asking a lot I know your busy but I still wanted to ask since I absolutely adore all of your characters and I want to get to know them all as much as you can let me 💚💚💚💚🐍🐍🐍🐍

As always have a wonderful day!!! With lots of love your curious little Dragon friend 🐉💚🐍🐍

Consider me blessed 😊💚

Aw you're welcome! 💜

I've done some HCs on Rerek before, but I'll happily do it again and answer these, I love it when people take such an interest in my world and lore. 🥹💚

Rerek HCs

His favourite foods are nifflers and puffskiens, he just has a prefered taste for those, he also eats human body parts from the Den.

Rerek is a simple creature, in his spare time he mainly just likes to bask in his Vivarium, but he often also asks Marvolo if they can go out for walks in the woods

He's a golden child reticulated Python

Rerek was gifted to Marvolo by Aleister when Rerek was a snaklett and Marvolo was 9yo

His favourite memories were simply getting to know Marvolo, and developing a strong bond with him. Marvolo and Rerek adore each other, and have a very powerful bond.

Hehe, I'll do a script for that question 💚

Rerek: *minding his business*

Marvolo: *wanders over smirking, and simply boops his nose without saying a word*

Rerek: (?!) ...Urgh, I fucking hate it when you do that.

Marvolo: *chuckles*

Rerek: *chuckles back* But because its YOU..I'll allow it..

You know what, I've never really thought about how he'd look as a human! But I'd say he'd actually be rather inkeeping with the Gaunts aesthetic! With his voice being what it is, he wouldn't be young, y'all gotta remember Rerek IS AN OLD MAN NOW! 🤣 I picture an older gentlmen, tall, slender, high and prominent cheekbones. While writing this I decided to go and heavily edit one of my Marvolo pics to how I'd see Rerek as a human, and this is what I settled on.

You're not asking a lot! Don't worry, this was fun! 😊💚🐍

Thank you so much, hope you have a wonderful day too! 💜💜

~