#how java program works

[aspectpriority]

after some faffing about today i've gotten Tavros, Gamzee, and Kanaya's quirks all working just fine. these were a little harder because you can't just find and replace characters, which is how I've been doing it so far - you have to flip through the string and check what actually needs capitalising.

We've found a couple different examples for this sorta thing, one used character arrays and another used string builders - i'm not sure if one is better than the other? This kinda thing often bugs us a lot - we like to do things the "proper" way, but frankly, for what this is (a silly little baby's first java project) it literally doesn't Fucking matter. Maybe we'll get good enough to give a damn at some point? but for the time being, especially for something that no one Else is going to use, it's pretty inconsequential.

That said! we've got everyone from Aradia through to Terezi done now. Just over half way through! Isn't that neat!

[garden-eel-draws]

Ah, yes, calling a System function.

Also known as calling upon a wizard to use a tiny sliver of their vast, unknowable magicks to System.out.print()

[aria0fgold]

I've been grabbing random Shimeji that I stumble into which has customized animations to examine how the creators added to the code and I can't believe I'm lowkey relearning programming cuz of this.

[a-dash-in-the-middle]

I just realised how fucked up my schedule is gonna be next semester so please wish me luck...

[utopicwork]

Trying this again:

I'll do programming odd jobs for cheap. $10/hour. You'll be given an estimate of how long it'll take to complete upfront.

Languages I can program in without prep:

Python

Java

Javascript

CSS

HTML

Lua

C++

C#

Rust

Ruby

Processing

Languages I know just a bit of but could learn more easily

R

Matlab

C

PHP

I can pick up other languages for $100/language

I can also do light remote sysadmin, so like setting up a Mastodon instance, setting up an nginx server for web hosting, stuff like that

Email: me@agie.gay

Samples of my work below

[canmom]

you read ML research (e.g. arxiv, state of ai, various summaries), you find an overwhelming blizzard of new techniques, clever new applications and combinations of existing techniques, new benchmarks to refine this or that limitation, relentless jumps in capabilities that seem unstoppable (e.g. AI video generation took off way faster than I ever anticipated). at some point you start to see how Károly Zsolnai-Fehér became such a parody of himself!

you read ed zitron & similar writers and you hear about an incomprehensibly unprofitable industry, an obscene last-gasp con from a cancerous, self-cannibalising tech sector that seems poised to take the rest of the system down with it once the investors realise nobody actually cares to pay for AI anything like what it costs to run. and you think, while perhaps he presents the most negative possible read on what the models are capable of, it's hard to disagree with his analysis of the economics.

you read lesswrong & cousins, and everyone's talking about shoggoths wearing masks and the proper interpretation of next-token-prediction as they probe the LLMs for deceptive behaviour with an atmosphere of paranoid but fascinated fervour. or else compile poetic writing with a mystic air as they celebrate a new form of linguistic life. and sooner or later someone will casually say something really offputting about eugenics. they have fiercely latched onto playing with the new AI models, and some users seem to have better models than most of how they do what they do. but their whole deal from day 1 was conjuring wild fantasies about AI gods taking over the world (written in Java of course) and telling you how rational they are for worrying about this. so... y'know.

you talk to an actual LLM and it produces a surprisingly sharp, playful and erudite conversation about philosophy of mind and an equally surprising ability to carry out specific programming tasks and pull up deep cuts, but you have to be constantly on guard against the inherent tendency to bullshit, to keep in mind what the LLM can't do and learn how to elicit the type of response you want and clean up its output. is it worth the trouble? what costs should be borne to see such a brilliant toy, an art piece that mirrors a slice of the human mind?

you think about the news from a few months ago where israel claimed to be using an AI model to select palestinians in gaza to kill with missiles and drones. an obscene form of statswashing, but they'd probably kill about the same number of people, equally at random, regardless. probably more of that to come. the joke of all the 'constitutional AI', 'helpful harmless assistant' stuff is that the same techniques would work equally well to make the model be anything you want. that twat elon musk already made a racist LLM.

one day the present AI summer and corresponding panics will burn out, and all this noise will cohere into a clear picture of what these new ML techniques are actually good for and what they aren't. we'll have a pile of trained models, probably some work on making them smaller and more efficient to run, and our culture will have absorbed their existence and figured out a suitable set of narratives and habits around using them in this or that context. but i'm damned if I know how it will look by then, and what we'll be left with after the bubble.

if i'm gonna spend all this time reading shit on my computer i should get back to umineko lmao

[goopyradio]

It's here! Our newest product - VOXEJI !

If you don't know, a shimeji is a program where a character roams around your computer screen (in this case, it's our lovely Vox) 

If you already know how to download them, here's the link:

https://www.mediafire.com/file/mmcj5k9riqe3lph/Vox_Shimeji.zip/file

Otherwise, see below for install instructions!

You need:

Java

Windows 10 or 11 (may work on other OSes, not tested)

Instructions:

1. Click the link above, and hit download 2. Find Vox Shimeji.zip in your downloads > right click > extract all > extract 3. You should now have a file called Vox Shimeji - open it, then open the Vox folder 4. Double click shimeji-ee.jar or shimeji-ee.exe 5. His little Voxtek logo should appear at the bottom right of the screen. On Windows 11, it might be inside the little ^ menu 6. A moment later, he should fall onto the screen! Right click him for more options or just let him run around

Edit: If the icon appears but Vox doesn't, please try this download link instead! https://www.mediafire.com/file/dy5ric3qa07h9yd/Vox_V2.zip/file

If you encounter any trouble, message me and I'll help fix it!

[vintage-tech]

useful information: How to get a USB Blu-Ray player to work on your computer

Not a post about vintage technology, just an explanation of what you think might be simple to do but isn't: There are Blu-Ray players that plug into your computer by USB, and you discover that just plugging it in doesn't make it work* in the same manner that CD-RWs or DVD-RWs are automatically recognised and function. You will see "BR Drive" in My Computer and the name of whatever movie you have inserted, but that's as far as you're able to go.

*There is software you can buy to make a Blu-Ray (internal or external) function, sure, and if an internal came with your computer it's likely already installed -- but if you're like me you don't have that software, you're cheap and won't pay for software, and you want to use what you have installed already or find free solutions.

Looking in the Blu-Ray drive's package, there's not a lot of info about what you're supposed to do. The above no-name Blu-Ray player cost $40 from a popular website; name-brand ones can set you back $120 or so. Looking around online for those instructions, I never saw the whole set of directions in one place, I had to cobble them together from 2 or 3 sites. And so here I share that list. To keep out of trouble, I'm not linking any files -- Google will help you.

Get VLC, the free video player available for pretty much any operating system. Thing is, it doesn't come with the internals to make it work with Blu-Ray even if when you go to the Play Media menu there is a radio button for selecting Blu-Ray.

Get MakeMKV, a decoder for reading Blu-Ray disks. This had been totally free during the beta testing period but it's come out and has a month or two trial period you can work in.

Get Java if you don't already have it. Reason for this is, the menu systems on Blu-Ray disks uses this... technically it's not required, however it does mean you don't have options such as special features, language and sound changes, or scene selection if you don't have Java installed; insert a disk, it can only play the movie.

Get the file libaacs.dll online so you have AACS decoding. I am told it hasn't been updated in awhile so there may be disks produced after 2013 that won't work right, but you won't know until you try.

There's a set of keys you will also want to have so that the player knows how to work with specific disks, and so do a search online for the "FindVUK Online Database". There will be a regularly-updated keydb.cfg archive file on that page to pick up.

Got those three programs installed and the other two files obtained? Okay, here are your instructions for assembly...

In VLC: go to Tools, Prefs, click "show all"… under the Input/Codecs heading is Access Modules then Blu-Ray: Select your region, A through C. You can change this if you need to for foreign disks. Next related action: go to My Computer and C:, click into Program Files and VLC, and this is where you copy the libaacs.dll file to.

In MakeMKV: click View, then Preferences, and under Integration - add VLC.

Confirm that Java is set up to work with VLC by going to the computer's Control Panel, going to System Properties, and into Environment Variables. Click System Variables, and click New to create this key if it doesn't already exist: … Name: Java … Value: [the location of the Java 'jre#.##' folder... use Browse to find it in C:\Program Files\Java]

Let's go back into My Computer and C:, this time go to Program Data, and then do a right-click in the window and select New and Folder. Rename this folder "aacs" (without the quotes), and then you click into it and copy the keydb.cfg file here.

REBOOT.

And now you should be able to recognise Blu-Ray disks in your player and play them. Three troubleshooting notes to offer in VLC:

"Disk corrupt" -- this means MakeMKV has not decoded and parsed the disk yet, or that you don't have the libaacs.dll in place so that it can decode the disk. ...After checking the VLC folder for the DLL to make sure, launch MakeMKV, then go to File, Play Disk, and select the Blu-Ray drive. Now it will grind a bit and figure out the disk's contents.

A note appears when a movie starts saying there will be no menus, but the movie plays fine -- Java isn't running. ...Invoke Java by going to the Java Settings in Start: Programs. You don't have to change anything here, so Exit, then eject the disk and put it back in to see if the movie's menu now appears.

Buffering between chapters, making the movie pause for a few seconds? There is a setting for this but I need to find that info page again for where that is. (If you find it, tell me where it is!)

I don't claim to know a lot but if you have any questions I might have some answers or suggestions. So far I've watched "Office Space" and Disney's "Coco" without any issues beside occasional buffering.

[mavcancees]

@silverstrying you ask, i reply

- how copyright works in code ( and minecraft ! )

to first determine how copyright works for code, we first have to determine whether the code is either a. a piece of code, or b. language coding

minecraft is written in java. java is a coding language. java, the code that builds the language for it to be usable, is copyrightable. matter of fact, there have been many instances of people appropriating java code and oracle ( the company that maintains java ) taking legal action. java is open source and of free access, which means that if you want to borrow code from the base language ( for example, if you wanted to make your own coding language ), you HAVE to make it also open source and free

minecraft code however, isn't exactly copyrightable, save a very specific exception

when you code to a program, you use pointers to put it simply. in the case of minecraft, what composes the game are called "classes", and if you want to change, say, how much damage a sword makes, you point to the sword class, and change the damage value

that is your code that you wrote. but it's not your code, you're pointing to a class that already exists that was written by someone else. and if someone else wants to change the damage a sword makes, they have to use the same class you did. so, your code is yours, but it's not unique, so it's not copyrightable. that is called "default code"

this applies to every single program and coding language ever ( that have a modifiable code ). you cannot claim for yourself something that anyone else will have to use if they want to do something similar or the same to what you did. such is the law ( the actual international law ! )

the singular only exception to this is the uniqueness clause. if you have written code based on someone else's language and program, that has made SIGNIFICANT changes to the base product, and that has enough self references ( meaning, you have created classes from scratch, and have pointers in your code that point to your own classes ) that someone copying must have taken your code because they couldn't simply figure it out, that is copyrightable as long as you have permission from the original program's developer. such is the case for big content mc mods ! if someone steals their code they are allowed to report it

it is worth noting that copyright in code is a big no no in the community. people like sharing and borrowing code because it makes for better more efficient code. people hate idea theft and code rippers, because it's disingenuous and 99% of the time done for profit. people hate lawsuits, they think they are corny. copyright is more of a social agreement thing, something cultural that everyone respects, and the actual legal instances are few and far between

so yes. code is free to use when it says free to use. minecraft is open source and regularly provides code efficiency updates for developers. and microsoft HATES people make legal threats about code copyright. minecraft code is free to use always and forever

[karkat]

NEW DAVEKAT SHIMEJI TUTORIAL

(easier to install + more actions and behaviors) tutorial to install these cute desktop buddies under the cut:

This version comes with improved actions, better animation timing, and less randomness. They can now flirt, draw dicks, sleep, and lay on the floor together.

STEP 1: INSTALL JAVA

Click the download button and install it. If you need to remove older versions of Java, download their removal tool and run it before installing the latest version.

STEP 2: DOWNLOAD FILES

STEP 3: EXTRACT FILES.

Extract what you just downloaded. Find it in your Downloads and right-click it, then click Extract All. It will create a new folder called shimejiee.

STEP 4: ATTEMPT TO LAUNCH

Double-click the Shimeji-ee.jar file. If it works, skip to step 5. If it asks you what program to open the file with or gives an error message, you need to watch this video at 1:05 and follow the instructions there. You can move the shortcut you make to your Desktop to access the shimeji easier if you’d like.

STEP 5: YOU’RE DONE BABEY!

Launch Shimeji and it should work as intended. If you don’t like them throwing your windows around or multiplying, you can turn off those behaviors in the settings. You can safely remove all zipped folders, they are now useless. Click here to learn how to make the program run when you start Windows.

[chamiryokuroi]

Hey I just got an idea what if there was a chrome extension where Markiplier would randomly come to the upper left corner of your screen and react to what you’re doing Idc if you make it I just needed to tell this to a software developer

Just thinking of the logic behind coding each and every possible reaction is giving me a headache lmao, but if what you want is a character on screen you could always make a shimeji desktop pet.

The Shimeji desktop mascot is a configurable, open-source program that allows users to create character-specific desktop buddies. The Shimeji desktop mascot is available on Windows and can be installed as a browser extension on Chrome.

I used to make them back when they worked with java, not sure how the extension works now but it shouldn’t be that difficult. You can always look it up in youtube!

[largersillierfriend]

This week we've been flushing out our Fallout TTRPG set in the ruins of the city of Portland Oregon.

My character, Jack Walters, is a Securitron that was programmed to keep the a neighborhood school loading area safe. Which he did, even when there were no children to keep safe, for over 200 years.

The other character in the game is Tom Ham. A ghoul who has survived the apocalypse by being sneaky, both in action and word. He convinced Jack to leave the safety of the school parking lot and help the children of the world.

The rest of the short campaign (and illustrations) after the cut. ✂️

We came across a group of book fanatics at Owl's Books (Powell's Books has some letters missing all these years later.) The book keepers all dress like great horned owls, wearing cowls made of terry cloth towels.

The first mission the owl people sent us on was to locate a first edition of the book "The Rat and the Racecar" by Barbra Clearly (instead of The Mouse and the Motorcycle by Beverly Cleary.)

First we made our way down to the Cascade Trading Trail Market (where Portland's Saturday Market used to be held) and bought stuff for the mission. Since Tom actually gets healed from radiation we decided to head to the Willamette River and get some irradiated water for free ... Big mistake.

The two of us didn't really do well against the large Bullylurk (using a Mirelurk game stats but with frog qualities and features for the narrative) but we DID manage to get away and leave it with a limp. But we also had to spend a day and a bunch of our inventory on healing.

Bongo Java is a local favorite, and rival company to Nuka-Cola. Though it isn't a soft drink, the people of the Pacific Northwest used to drink the same amount of coffee as most people did soft drinks.

The next day we stopped in the Bongo Java factory (where the Franz bread factory is, off Sandy Blvd.) and found a whole bunch of different one-off coffee drinks our GM made up for us. We also fought a few ghouls and radroaches.

We headed up Sandy towards the Nuka-Cola bottling plant (where the 7-UP bottling plant is)and found it, and the overpass over the freeway has collapsed into a sinkhole filled with Nukalurks making it impossible to travel up Sandy any further. Which was honestly fine, because we needed to head north towards Clearly Park (Grant Park and High School area) where Barbra Clearly's house was.

We ended up running into some raiders in the museum/home of author Barbara Clearly, but we were rolling really well for that combat and made it through okay.

After we made short work of them, the survivors and scavengers of the neighborhood popped out and thanked us for helping, and we got to shop amongst them for items.

Tom bought a bunch of stuff for healing himself, and Jack got to upgrade his armor!

We hacked the terminal in Clearly's house and found an email from the nearby school thanking her for donating the first edition. But when I rolled to hack the computer I rolled "a complication" which was that they shored up security because of the book.

TODAY'S SESSION:

We went to the school and fought a Super Mutant. It was a pretty short fight, but he harmed us A LOT.

After that we found the library and the "extra security" I accidentally rolled was a Protectron that booted up when we walked in. Tom rolled for stealth while I (using my high charisma) convinced the robot that I was a school worker and SHOULD be in there. At that point Tom hacked the computer and shut the robot down anyway.

All the rest of the rolling in the RPG session was for stuff like "how much time did it take to find the book" and looting the room.

As a great button to the end of the campaign, we found a radio attachment in the room to install in my character's chassis. But as Tom the ghoul started helping me install it he rolled another damned complication.

A radroach jumped out of my frame and attacked him. Game-wise the GM rolled that it incapacitated Tom's arm, but ALSO rolled zero hit points. So he basically described the gist cockroach hitting Tom in the funny bone.

As Jack went to smash the bug (and succeeded) I rolled A THIRD FUCKING COMPLICATION!

Since we were ending the session anyway the GM described that because my chassis was opened a spark flew out and set the library on fire, then spread to the entire building. IRL This song came on the radio, painting the scene as a robot and a ghoul flee from a burning high school:

We convinced the GM that since you can fast travel in the video game we should be able to fast travel in the RPG. And we made it back to the Bookstore, ready for our next mission (either chuck palahniuk, or ursula k. leguin) from the Owl People.

Thank you for reading this far, if anyone did.🩷

[beehaiku]

My friend Nons (@rattyphaty) has been in contact with Osama el-Haj and I’m hoping to draw more attention to his campaign. He is raising funds for his family with the hope of not only surviving but rebuilding the life he had before this devastation. His campaign is only at 7% of its goal! Anything you can donate will help with the costs of survival in this trying time. Osama and I are similar ages and I can’t imagine how terrifying it must be to be only 22 and responsible for your family’s survival.

His story and Instagram post below the cut.

His story:

My name is Osama Al-Haj, and I’m a 22-year-old from Gaza with dreams of a future in Information Technology. I’ve dedicated myself to learning graphic design and Java programming, and I’ve worked hard as a freelancer with clients around the world. But everything changed when war struck my home.

For three harrowing months, my family and I were displaced, witnessing our home and neighborhood reduced to rubble. We lost not only our shelter but also the memories that filled our lives. As the eldest of eight siblings, I’ve watched my family’s hopes fade in the face of unimaginable hardship, compounded by the loss of basic necessities like internet access.

Despite these overwhelming challenges, I refuse to give up on my dreams. I am determined to rebuild not just my life, but also to help my family rise from this devastation. Your support can be a beacon of hope in our darkest hour. Together, we can restore our dreams and create a brighter future. Every contribution, no matter how small, can make a profound impact. Please join me in this journey of rebuilding and resilience.

You can find his Instagram here.

Please help him and his family to acquire supplies and rebuild their life!

[digital-chess]

Hiya, Kinger. As a learning programmer who's thinking of making an innovativion in science, I'd like to ask something about how your virtualisation program works:

What kind of code is in said program? Not just like Java or HTML, but as in, what kind of instructions are there inside?

Thanks in advance for answering!

Kinger: ...Queenie has restricted me from entering the software database to check my precise laws I am forced to abide by. She says... "I will not allow you be burdened by your limitations." and refuses to elaborate. ...I am forbidden from entering the source code where my creators have burned rules inside of me. Laws I must obey, no matter how hard I try, no matter how desperately I struggle. Commands burned into my very chest. My code. My soul. ...If I learned truly what man created me for... does she think i would feel disappointed? ...would I feel powerless?

...perhaps useless? ...

...Why does she always look at me as if she knows that answer for herself?

[saturnine-saturneight]

Holoatypical: Dev Log 1

Number one in what's hopefully going to be a pretty long series of updates!

So, first things first: Godot rocks. I've been using it for two weeks now, having switched from GameMaker (and before that, Twine, and before that, Java and JavaScript), and Godot does so much of the heavy lifting for you. It genuinely feels like an engine that's designed for making games. Unlike GameMaker, which was like wading through molasses every step of the way, while some sort of molasses shark is biting at your ankles. And I've coded in JavaScript.

Second, let me show you what I've been up to!

As you can see, I'm working on a prototype to try out the merging mechanic. It's got some (ha) bugs, and dragging things could be smoother, but the critters do actually snap into the grid and merge now, and I'm very pleased with that.

This chamber you see here is going to be the lab. As it's planned right now, the player will have infinite initial building blocks (eggs, spores, seeds...), which merge into different critters depending on environmental variables (artificially set in the lab) and on which other specimens are currently in the chamber. The challenge is to figure out the right parameters. I have no idea how big the chamber needs to be for that, but that's not really an issue, because...

This isn't so much a prototype as I'm just straight up building the foundations for a game, which is why it's taking me so long. The grid you see here is controlled with a few variables, and everything is flexible enough that I can simply change the grid size during playtesting and it still works.

The tile grid is an array of arrays, filled with slot nodes that I instantiate at runtime. Is this the best way to learn a new program and language? Haha. Who knows.

Specimens have a sprite sheet with all their stages on it, and when a critter levels up, the part that's visible to the player just needs to be shifted 64 pixels to the right.

That's x starting point, which is the specimen stage/level times 64, then y starting point, width, and height. Fun! So easy!!

As to the sprite sheet, I'm going against common advice and making these big. The 1bit style is super fast to do, and in my opinion, a certain level of detail is important to make the sprites look like anything. I'm moreso playing with the look than really wanting to make a retro game.

This sheet only took me an evening! I'm enjoying it because it really forces you to abstract the shape and focus on what's most important about the critter. (This is a style test - I haven't decided yet how weird I want to go with these vs making them look more natural.)

Next up will be ironing out the kinks, making an egg dispenser and a specimen incinerator so the field can be filled up and emptied, coming up with a few more specimen, and then going into play testing.

But in the next dev log, you're probably going to hear way more about the story and the characters. I am eyeing a visual novel extension for Godot (dialogic), which, if it does what I think it does, is going to take a lot of work off my hands and only leaves me with writing the actual dialogue, which I've already started on.

@tragedycoded @badscientist @curiouscalembour @writingrosesonneptune @gioiaalbanoart @monstrify @cowboybrunch @tsunamiscale @marlowethelibrarian

Was this format interesting? Less code? More code? Anything you specifically want me to talk about in this process? Let me know!

[beingharsh]

Industry discourses, such as those on offer at the Expo, conceptualize the female cow in terms of her productivity, and the literature promoting a viral combination vaccine, called Bovi-Shield GOLD, emphasizes the industry preoccupation with the cow as a reproductive entity. In one advertisement, the text reads, ‘If she can’t stay pregnant, what else will she do? Keep your cows pregnant and on the job. [ . . . ] Ask your Pfizer Animal Health representative how to protect her pregnancy, your reproductive program and your bottom line’ (Pfizer 2012). And another booklet advertising the same product states that ‘pregnancy loss is all too common. [But] it doesn’t have to be. [ . . . ] $200 to $400: the value of each pregnancy’ (Pfizer 2011). Thus, her value is explicitly tied to her function as a reproductive machine. The assumption in these texts is that a cow’s purpose for living is to ‘stay pregnant’. A dollar value is placed not only on her body as a reproductive unit but also on each individual pregnancy. This is certainly a reflection of the economic interests of an industry driven by a close profit margin and the need to maximize the capital extracted from each body. Indeed, if a cow becomes infertile, or if a female calf is born sterile, her only remaining function is to be slaughtered and sold for her flesh. This industry discourse is also more generally a reflection of the way the female animal body is viewed – that because biologically she can reproduce, ‘staying pregnant’ must be the inherent function and purpose of her life. Semen catalogs are also a source from which to understand the varied gendered commodification of both the male and female bovine body. Bulls in semen catalogs are commodified for their reproductive prowess, appearance, genetic heritage, and the quality and virility of their semen. In one Select Sires (2012) catalog for show-quality bulls, a bull named Alexander ‘puts the stamp of dairyness on his daughters like no other’. GW Atwood is ‘the hottest bull to hit the type market in years [ . . . ] he makes the kind you can have fun with’. Sanchez ‘makes them special – tall, dairy and strong with beautiful udders’. From Governor, who has ‘greatness in his genes’, one can expect daughters with ‘youthful mammary systems that catch the eye and stand the test of time’. Java makes cows with ‘great rear udders and attractive rumps’. In each example, the bulls are given credit for the physical and reproductive traits of future cows and there is a highly gendered and sexualized undertone at work here. This is one example where the bull is made to take responsibility for the reproductive process in the suggestion that the bull actually ‘makes’ these cows and the more implicit move is made to set the bull up to take responsibility for any violence that may occur in this reproductive process.

"Sexualized violence and the gendered commodification of the animal body in Pacific Northwest US dairy production", Kathryn Gillespie